


Better Selves

by AriaCessair



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: Angst and Fluff and Smut, Canon-Typical Violence, Dreams, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Mentions of Abortion, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Past Rape/Non-con, Post-Movie(s), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Slow Burn, Stillbirth
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-27
Updated: 2015-08-19
Packaged: 2018-04-11 14:29:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 24,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4439006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AriaCessair/pseuds/AriaCessair
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It is just so typical Capable, foolish as much as it is innocent, to think that whatever bond Max and Furiosa had formed is anything akin to love. They are Road Warriors, survivors above all else. They had been forged by fire, drenched in blood and war, and now are left broken. Love cannot survive in such inhospitable circumstances.</p>
<p>They did, however, build complete and mutual trust in the space of half a dozen exchanged words. And trust is such a precious commodity these days.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

At first, she fails to notice.

 

While relief did fill Furiosa as the lift jazzed to a stop and they could climb out to the tunnels within the Citadel without any kind hostile reception, the risk was still high. Her side throbbed with every small and shallow breath taken, but her body was bursting with too much adrenaline to actually care. There were several things to be done before that relief could turn into something like relaxation.

The first was to assure they were safe. Or, as safe as they possibly _could_ be. Toast was right when she stated the Citadel was now filled with War Pups and War Boys too sick to fight. While reassuring for their coup plan, the remark did little good for them now, in face of their success.

“We need to make a round and see what and who can be used for defense” Furiosa says, once they are gathered at the top of the Tower. Her wounds continue to send sharp pangs of pain every other minute, her vision is blurry and she is putting all possible effort in having one foot in front of the other, without missing. She would not fault, would not make a waste of their victory.

“Can they be trusted?” asks Greip, one of the Vuvalini, looking around. War Pups and The Wretched that managed to climb up surround them. The children looking at her with a bewilderment and admiration through their black painted eyes she finds unsettling. There are a few armed guards as well, the very few ones left to defend the Citadel.

“I want each one of these women to have a gun and enough ammo” she commands to them, pointing at her companions. The Wives, despite having mostly no clue of what to do with a gun, say nothing. When the Pups come back minutes later, hands packed with sorted guns, some extra bullets and, most importantly, no reaction from the guards, she answers Griep:

“For now”.

They walk the corridors, inspecting every door, freeing those who should not be have been held captive to begin with, assessing what they had. They find the rooms for the War Boys breeders – she hated the word, _breeder_ ; it reduced women to nothing more than cattle – the makers of Immortan Joe’s army. Capable and Dag, wielding bolt cutters, cut their chains and set them free.

“What is going on?” one of them asks, amid the buzz.

“He’s dead. Joe is dead” Toast says it, the pleasure in her voice almost palpable. “Furiosa killed him”.

She did not know these women. Despite having spent the greater portion of her life in The Citadel, Furiosa did not know every corner of it. The room for the War Mothers, as Joe called them, was a hard one to reach: massively crowded, the nonstop waver of War Boys making it even harder to reach than the Wives’ quarters.

A heavily pregnant woman gingerly approaches her. She is peaked skin and sharp bones, dirt on the rags that wrap her swollen body. She takes Furiosa’s hand in hers, her brown eyes tearing as she whispers:

“Thank you”.

Breathing is made even harder as her throat clenches. She leaves the room as quickly as her aching bones allow, suddenly feeling claustrophobic. How much more of this miserable life could these women, _all_ of these people, take before they were broken beyond repair? There are so many of them – _slaves_ – and everywhere, bound by different shackles. What would have happened had they not come back?

With every turn, Furiosa sees a flicker of an image: a pair of blue eyes, reassuring and wild at the same time. It lasts less than a second each time, but so clear and tangible, she half expects to find him standing there. The Fool that made her turn back, brought her home and back to life.

_Max. His name is Max. That’s his name._

“What about him?” asks Toast, distracting her. They had reached the gazebo Joe used as a lookout for his war parties when they drove through the desert. Toast has her gun pointed straight at Corpus Colossus. The pathetic creature screams how much of a valuable asset he could be for her, how much he knew of the Citadel affairs and how he could help her set things right.

“There are records on Joe’s quarters” starts Cheedo, her voice merely above a whisper. Sweet Cheedo, fragile Cheedo. Her shaky hands hold onto the gun tightly, pointing viciously at Corpus. “Rows and rows of records. We don’t need you at all”.

Furiosa remembers those. Remembers Joe’s quarters all too well. She had spent too many hours in it, held spread and flat on her back, staring at anything but the man thrusting painfully into her, to forget.

It is Dag who moves first, removing Corpus’ cramped, deformed body from its supports and chair with amazing speed and practice.

“ _Schlanger_!” she hisses, throwing him over the observatory opening without a flinch. Furiosa does not move a muscle throughout the whole ordeal. She doesn’t care.

For the next forty eight hours, they arrange emergency plans, evacuation plans, appoint watchers and shifts, make sure they are half safe from the attacks Furiosa is sure will ensue. Her body throbs with pain in places she did not even know existed, and exhaustion threatens to tear her apart at every given moment. Still, she continues her survey, under the not so discreet scrutiny of the Wives.

 

She never notices she is avoiding sleep.

 

***

 

It is confusing, he will admit to that.

Maybe another person, a saner one, would fail to see the reason in an action that, to him, makes total sense. His sanity is questionable, yes, but he feels perfectly lucid in the ten seconds of pondering before he makes his decision.

Max decides to leave.

Leave the shelter and security of having a roof above his head, a place to begin to call home. Leave the company of people who are brave and honest, the chance of a new beginning. Leave _her_. And the explanation is as simple as it is shattering.

He does not belong with the living.

There are two bikes and a car at the bottom of the Towers, forgotten now that the War Boys lost their master and the mob is too busy shredding said master to pieces. He picks the car, missing his Interceptor more than ever. Checks to see that the tank is full and there is a large variety of weapons scattered in it. This vehicle was ready for battle before someone thought better at it. He transfers the guzzoline from the two bikes to a small portable tank laying there, grabs a second one with water, counts his blessings and leaves.

Running has become a second nature to him, akin to survival. Maybe, if he is fast enough, the ghosts tailing his tracks will not be able to reach him. It is a lie, he is aware of that, but he cannot help it. Keeps telling it to himself in order to keep moving.

Taking steps is easy, standing still is far too hard.

There is too much hardship in his life already. He cannot resist something easy.

He does look back, though. Steals a glance at her before he leaves the lift. Feels her gaze at the back of his neck and looks up, sees her triumphantly rising to victory. Through his rearview mirror, Max looks at The Citadel now and sees her. The green that grows in there forever associated with the green in her eyes. It suits her, this rebirth, this new chance at the future. Redemption.

He does not think he could live in a world where that was not possible.

Max hits the pedal harder, testing the engine of this stolen car and sights heavily when it disappoints him. It is not a bad car, far from it. It will do for now, a car being far more useful in the desert night than a bike. Still, he seriously considers driving back to the wreckage in the canyon and looking for his V8.

Getting to know one self is a way to stay alive in this chaotic world of his. Max knows his limits, knows what he is capable of, what he cannot stand. His strengths and his weaknesses have become old companions, intimates in a soothing matter. Knowing exactly how fucked up he is has helped him keep a small shred of lucidity in the helter-skelter of his life. It has kept him devoid of fear. It is not courage, he thinks. Just a profound awareness that allows him to know what to expect from himself; it avoids surprises.

That is why he is scared shitless of Furiosa.

Aside from the obvious reasons one would have to fear her. When given the chance, she would have killed him without a second thought. Max has met very few people on the Fury Road that fight with the intensity and defiance she does. She is strong and fierce in a way that is almost brutal. The power that emanates from her does it so naturally, but overwhelmingly so and convinces him that, yes, this is a woman who could take him anytime, in any circumstance; and had he stayed longer on her bad side, he was sure to be dead.

But that is not what scares him the most. The thing is, despite her ferocity and vengeance, she is kind. In a place where no good deed goes unpunished, she dares to care, to help. To trust. She trusted him, way before he trusted her, without reason or cause. It baffled him then, it still does now. She is not a cold-hearted killing machine. He had met those, dealt with those. It would be a lot easier if she was one. Instead, Furiosa confused the hell out of him, making him react all wrong.

First of all, he does not kill her. Any other circumstance, anyone else, and he would have put a bullet in their skull and saved the other two. With her, he could not bring himself to do it, despite his desperation. Second, he does not leave. Sticks with her and her pack of outcasts when all his instincts told him otherwise, when it would have been a lot easier for him to just go – and he knows full well they would all, _all_ be dead had he done that. And third, he saves her. From her decisions, from their attackers and from her almost suicidal vendetta.

It was a reflex he acquired in the spam of three days. It was easy, it felt right in a way almost nothing else felt these days. Saving her was as much a selfless act as it was selfish. The mere idea of her ghost joining the irate swarm of specters that haunted him too unbearable, even for someone like him. Max does not usually ponders too much on all the whys of his own actions. He acknowledges them, like he does just now. However, in this particular case, if he had to choose one of the many explanations for his odd behavior the last couple of days, notably regarding her, he would go for the simpler one.

He thinks she might save him in the end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First timer here. So please, be gentle.
> 
> I'm completly passionate about music (and Mad Max, obviously), and I like to hide some lyrics in my writings. This chapter features "You've got time", by Regina Spektor.
> 
> I love comments. Feel free to write me a line or two!


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bit of a panic attack. Really mild, though.

Fatigue does catch up with her, however, on the third day after the Revolution (the Wives – or the Sisters, because that is what they have always been – started calling their escape and glorious return as a Revolution. Furiosa didn’t mind).

They are gathered in what used to be the Sisters quarters, piles of makeshift paper and leather containing the written secrets of the Citadel spread all over the floor. The vault door had been ripped off the wall and the windows were open wide. The wind was colder up there, a welcome balm to Furiosa’s feverish skin.

The discussion going on is about how much the bullets found in Joe’s storehouse would last, in case of an attack. When the words stop making sense in her ears, Furiosa’s knees give in.

Cheedo is the closest, and catches her before she actually falls. Capable is fast to help her.

“What’s wrong with her?” Dag asks, worried.

“I’m fine” Furiosa says, and her voice sounds shaky even to her own ears.

“She’s just exhausted”, states Cura, the other Vuvalini with them, after a quick examination of her body. “She’s been up way longer than she should have. Sleep will do her good. Maybe some food, when she can stomach it”. Cheedo and Capable, supporting Furiosa’s weight, drag her in the direction of the beds’ chamber.

“I said I’m fine” she tries again, but her strength has long left her, she cannot even untangle herself from the Sisters. The thought of being once again in the quarters arrogated to the Wives of Immortan Joe causes shivers all over her skin. Or maybe it is just the fever.

“If you don’t rest,” Cura starts, matter-of-factly, “you will be trifling away the gift that road warrior of yours gave you”.

This catches her attention, and she allows them to carry her the rest of the way without protests.

“Toast and Griep are on watch now”, Capable starts, after she and Cheedo settle her gently onto one of the beds. “Someone will be outside the room. We will come and get you if anything happens. Anything at all”. The redhead unfastens the buckles of the gun tied to her tights and places it within Furiosa’s reach on the floor, comprehension in her eyes.

“We did it, Furiosa” Capable plants a warm kiss on her not swollen cheek. “Rest.” the girl repeats.

She is asleep before they leave the room.

 

_The first thing she noticed was the smell: petrichor and young saplings. It was so strong and clear, it could not possibly be real. When Furiosa opened her eyes to the Green Place of her childhood and a pair of healthy arms, she knew she was dreaming._

_She did not mind. The pain of that place not existing anymore was more subtle in her dreams, less real. She could touch the leaves and enjoy the gentle sun on her skin while it lasted, without suffering._

_The second thing she noticed was she was alone in the green expense, this dream field a lot bigger than her rational thinking remembered. Furiosa walked a good twenty feet before she spotted the wonder. A piece of framed glass, standing unsupported in the middle of the grassland. A mirror, she concluded, getting closer. Looking at it, though, she did not see herself, she saw right through it._

_The place was the same, except He was standing there, leaning on a car, assessing his surroundings with relaxed precision. He was alone, but it crossed her mind that he might be waiting. For her, maybe? He did not seem to take notice of her, the woman behind the mirror._

_Reaching her hand to touch said mirror, she heard it:_

_“You can’t go in there.”_

_Turning around, she saw Angharad standing a few feet behind her. She looked like she was on the first time Furiosa met her: without the scars she self-inflicted on her beautiful face, without the burden of a forced pregnancy. Looking one last time through the mirror – Max was still leaning on the car, the most serene she had ever seen him –, Furiosa joined the unmoving Angharad._

_“Why can’t I go in there?” She wanted to go. She missed him already, more than she was willing to admit._

_“You are not ready yet” was the simple answer. Angharad was not facing her anymore, kneeling on the dirt to pick little flowers from the grass._

_“When will I be ready?”_

_“That is up to you” still not looking at her._

_Ask a stupid question, Furiosa thought._

_“Okay, then, what do I have to do to be ready?”_

_Angharad got to her feet and looked her straight in the eye._

_“You will have to understand.”_

 

She has that dream all the time.

 

***

 

It is the dawn of the third day when he hears her for the first time.

Max had stopped for the night and laid half asleep under the car. He did not mean to stop so soon, so near The Citadel still. But his bad knee had other ideas. It had finally succumbed to days of exploitation, making impossible for him to continue driving. He chose to stop atop of one of the smallest mountains, stretched his legs under the chassis and waited for sleep with a gun in his hand.

Sleep is perhaps an overestimation. The pain in his knee, while part of him already, is the physical reminder of all the things he lost before he wandered the wasteland. Now that the adrenaline was down and he was alone, the pain came louder and with full force. So did the ghosts.

_Max. Max._

_Help us._

_Why did you leave? Why, Max?_

_Help us._

_You killed us. Why did you leave us?_

_Max. Max. MAX!_

He wakes up feverish and drenched in cold sweat, fighting invisible enemies while his body fights to catch a breath, never realizing he fell asleep in the first place. His heart is pounding hard in his chest, he can hear his bloodstream in his ears. Max folds himself into fetal position, giving up any pretense of control while the tremors ravage his body. He knows the drill, had been through it before. Panic attacks, it is what they are. There used to be books about them in the old days. They do not happen very often, perhaps because he has learned how to co-exist with his ghosts. Still, when they do happen, there is little to be done but to let it pass. He braces himself a bit tighter, and starts humming an old tune from too many days ago, from a time when he did not know any pain at all.

_I must live in skin that’s new_

_I will live in skin that’s new_

_Head on with my ache_

_Into the light I head_

_I’m amazed that I’m still standing_

_And I demand that we all blend in_

_I’m amounted_

Max does not sing it; he couldn’t even if he wanted to, his voice is no use while he trembles like this. Just hums lightly, remembering the lyrics in his head. Tries to distract his body and mind from the assault it is suffering. There are a couple of things that help through this ordeal, he has learned over the years. Music is one of them, forcing his brain to work, to remember and focus on something else. Human contact also helps, but he has given up on that already. Slowly, oh so very slowly, his heart rate hinders down, breathing becomes a tiny bit easier. He can feel the tension leaving his muscles in waves, a tingling left behind he associates with pure exhaustion.

The sky is still pitch black, the prelude of dawn. Max will never know if he really fell asleep after that. His eyes are closed and his mind is miraculously silent. And then:

_“Wake up, Fool.”_

It’s her. So clear and loud as if she was laying right next to him. He bolts upright, smacking his head on the chassis. He is out from under the car in less than two seconds, scanning his surroundings desperately, ready to fight, ready to _hug_ her and cradle her in his arms. He’d heard her. _Her_. The sound so real, he almost felt her breath in his ear as the words were spoken

She is nowhere to be found, however. There is the desert, and the mountains and the morning coming on the horizon, but no sign of Furiosa. Was it a dream or was it really her? Or was it her ghost, coming to join the chorus of his demons? Reason and logic leave him as he conjures this thought. Maybe it _was_ her ghost. Maybe she died from her wounds, his efforts not enough to save her after all. Before he can despair any further, though, there’s more.

_“Eyes right, now.”_

Again, her voice is low but clear in his head. She doesn’t sound at all like his ghosts. Max is sure he is quite awake now. Some part of him is still conditioned to trust her completely, so he does as she says and looks right. There is movement a bit further away from the base of the mountain. Instinct kicks in then, surpassing whatever reverie he might be having. He collects a pair of binoculars from his heavily armed car and stares east. Sure enough, he can see what is left of Immortan Joe’s army skirting around the passage in the canyon, heading for the mountains.

_“Time to go.”_

It will take them half a day to reach the mountains, depending on how bad their injuries are, but he does not plan to stay there and watch it. He is flabbergasted and highly confused by how this whole thing came to be, but gets into motion fast. He is inside the car and driving away in no time, careful enough as not to leave too many tracks that might be followed.

Max hears Furiosa hum in approval and has to look twice in his rearview mirror to convince himself she is not indeed there.

 

 

The next time he stops for rest, he dreams of her.

 

 

_It is raining. The droplets are clear and fresh, touching his skin like a caress. He is sitting on the top of a small hill, hugging his knees while his face is tilted upwards. He cannot remember the last time he saw real rain, the nontoxic kind. There is green everywhere, surrounding him and beyond, as far as he can see. He wonders if The Green Place was really like this. He hopes it was._

_Max has closed his eyes, but he can feel her. Turning to his right and opening them, he sees her. She sits like him, though a bit straighter, a bit more elegantly. She is cleaner than he has ever seen her, the raindrops like crystals on her pale skin._

_“Do you like it?” Furiosa asks._

_“It’s beautiful.” It really is._

_“I always thought you would like it.”_

_He gazes at her a bit longer. She is not staring at him, but ahead, unperturbed by the rain on her face. It’s a dream, he is pretty aware of that. Still, she feels realer to him here, in this dreamland, than anything else in his life._

_“You scared me back there” he starts. No need to explain what he is talking about, she had always known. But it is a lot easier to speak in his dreams than in real life. “Shouldn’t wake a man like that”._

_The corners of her lips curve a little in what would be a smile. It dawns on him that he never really saw her smiling._

_“Sorry about that.”_

_Max shrugs._

_“Why did you do it? Why help me?”_

_It’s her turn to shrug._

_He tries again._

_“Why are you here?”_

_Furiosa stares at him this time, her gaze the color of the fields surrounding them, piercing deep into him._

_“I’m here to understand.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Music credits: Live-in Skin, Foo Fighters.


	3. Chapter 3

It takes a while, but Max manages to convince himself he is not going any madder.

Once he gets over the pesky idea that, yes, he is hearing Furiosa’s voice in his head, and accepts it as a new feature in his life, he can start dealing with it.

She is not a ghost, he is sure of that. Max never sees her, except when he dreams of her. And, because these dreams are rare diamonds amid the goring blackness of his nightmares, he cherishes them, holds them close to his heart and imprints her features deeper within his mind. He doesn’t want her face distorted by a faulting memory or the careless fingers of his insanity. Max wants her protected and, he concludes, perhaps that is all he’s ever wanted.

So, no, definitely not a ghost.

He prowls through the mountains for a fortnight. He watches the moon change, Buzzards scavenging the wreckages left behind by the War Parties, watches War Boys making their way back to The Citadel, limping and crying. He is anxious when they reach it, still not sure of their intentions. Drives himself a bit more closely to the Towers than he would like, ready to hit the pedals towards them at the slightest sign of danger. While frantically looking through his binoculars, Max fights with all his might the will to say fuck to everything and just go back to them. And yet again, Furiosa’s voice comes when the white painted bodies vanish from his view and nothing seems to happen.

_“Keep moving, Fool.”_

That is also another clue signaling she is not part of his army of spirits: they always call him Max, only Furiosa calls him Fool.

Her voice is not a violent hiss, nor a desperate accusation. It sounds, instead, like a gentle command, some whispered order, like telling him not to breathe so she can shoot off their attackers. 

At the same time this realization gives him some sort of skewed comfort, it also just adds more questions to the pool of doubts he finds himself right now. What the hell is going on with him? Has his obsession with things he cannot have reached its pinnacle this time? When had Furiosa, her goals and dreams, become such an intrinsic part of his life he cannot think without hearing her voice?

This steel woman forged by fire, that managed to stir flaming chaos into his being, at the same time bringing placid clarity to his mind.

He has been looking for some kind of peace ( _Redemption?_ ) in the Wasteland the past years, running from his past and his ghosts, isolating himself from people as much as he can. He knows full well he will never find it, not like this. Still, he continues to look, if only to give a crooked purpose to his wandering. His hermitting being interrupted the way it was, through violence and abuse by Immortan Joe, only served to push him even further into himself, more creature than man.

Then Furiosa came along. Whatever masters this universe has must have had a blast watching her shove humanity back down his throat with an iron fist and an emerald gaze. And yet, him being the Fool she’d recognized him to be, after he made the right decision to leave her so she could have a real chance at a future, one that did not involve his self-destructive madness, he cannot let go of her.

Perhaps is just the unpredictability of having another person’s voice whispering things in his head at any given moment that is troubling him so much. Or perhaps is just his slow but growing yearning for her presence, for her to be real. It’s a new feeling, foreign and cryptic. Max has the impression he should know what this is, must know, deep down. He is afraid, though, to dig too deep within himself that he won’t be able to come back.

He heads for his car, not really knowing what to do. Whatever mission he had here, whatever purpose the stars had when they put him on this path, it’s over. Ended with his decision to leave. Now, with this sudden freedom, he feels overwhelmed, if not a bit lost. The hardest part of ending was always starting again.

Furiosa comes to the rescue, of course.

_“Maybe you should follow the path you were headed before this whole thing started.”_

“Mm… Didn’t know where I was headin' back then”. It is the first time he actually answers her back. His voice is hoarse and the movement in his throat is strange, a rusted engine put to work again.

_“You were headed west.”_

He was, indeed. And west seems as good a direction as any other right now, he concludes, starting the car and driving away.

Max has to admit his life is significantly easier with her along. Sure, he was perhaps getting crazier with every passing hour. But the idea that she would never mean him any harm, an idea born completely from the utter trust he had in her, made extremely simple to just do what she said. If she told him to wake up, he did; if she told him to move, he moved. Survival was no longer an animal instinct rooted within him: it was her demand. There was again that strange comfort in the thought that she wanted him alive.

Even if it was not her. Not really.

Max is aware, in some deep, hidden corner of his mind, that when he hears her, it is just his mind voice stealing her timbre. Perhaps he is conscious he is more prone to follow her biddings than his own, and his mind then disguises itself with her voice to avoid any reckless behavior that would get him killed.

Survival at its utmost evolved form.

Or perhaps he just finds her voice more pleasant than his.

As he drives into the crimson sunset, Max decides he doesn’t care. Real or not, he likes having her voice in his ear. If it means he is getting crazier, so be it.

She is worth it.

 

***

 

It takes seventeen days for the surviving War Boys to return to the Citadel from the wreckage on the canyon. They are battered and crazed by the thirst and the heat, most of them barely able to stand. Furiosa can only think of how Valkyrie would deem them too slow for taking such a long time to go around the mountains.

Thinking of Valkyrie, and all the fallen Vuvalini, hurts, so she shoves the thought back to the confines of her mind, focusing on the now.

Capable is the one who takes the lead and solves the situation with them. With a soft voice, gullible and sweet, she charms them into trusting her, trusting Furiosa as their new commander. Without realizing, almost as if they are hypnotized, they pledge alliance and obedience, if only to keep hearing her say in that voice of hers how proud she is of them all, how much good they can accomplish, if only they work together.

Furiosa is still unsettled, not sure how much she can rely on them. She has seen what thousands of days of brainwashing could do to a human being. Her most trusted War Boys, the ones that shared hundreds of days riding along her on the rig, learning her every move, how to trust her, had forsaken her in favor of a maniac mind-controller (the treason _she_ instead had committed towards them was still an open wound that gushed blood every now and then, but she shoves that thought away as well). Furiosa knew, had seen it, and because of that, is less inclined to believe that a few words from a woman these Boys know only as one of their master’s treasures would suffice to earn their acquiescence.  

“She talks to them like they matter” Toast, the ever Knowing, states late that night. “That’s why they believe her. Believe you. In the end, they just want to be loved. We all do”.

It is an understanding that had escaped Furiosa before, but that now crushes her with its truthfulness.

She wonders if that is one of the things she needs to understand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Music credits: Waiting for the End - Linkin Park


	4. Chapter 4

After twenty five days, all of Furiosa’s wounds are healed. Or, at least, she can open both of her eyes and it doesn’t hurt so much to breathe. She had managed to find that, in her old quarters, nothing had been moved. Back when the idea of escaping ceased to be just an idea, it was important not to leave any clues behind that Joe could easily follow. She did not have too many possessions, no one did in The Citadel, but was glad to find that her second set of the mechanic arm was still where she’d left. She was going to need it for what she had planned.

Whoever was fit to work on the garage worked hard to put the few remaining vehicles ready for the road, for battle. Furiosa did not think they would need it, _hoped_ they would not need it, but all care was necessary.

_Hope is a mistake._

The thing was, even if there was food and water to spare in the Citadel, they would not likely survive an attack on their own. Not without more guns, not without the ability to ride as far as and when they pleased – in other words, guzzoline.

It was time to pay a visit to their neighboring towns.

The Sisters wanted to join her, of course, so did Griep and Cura. Furiosa would not make the same stupid mistake Immortan Joe had, though. Having instead learned from it, she would leave Dag and Griep behind, with instructions to gather as many of The Wretched as possible at the base of the Citadel and to keep an eye on the horizon. If they were not back when the stars shone their brightest, the instructions were to lift as many people up as they could and prepare for an attack. They would not be able to hold for long, not with so few guns, so scarce warriors, but it was the best they could do.

_No, the best they could do was not to fail._

Dag and Griep go down on the lift with them. The Sisters embrace each other and Griep salutes Furiosa with the Vuvalini greeting, reciting an old prayer she had almost forgotten:

“May the Sun light your path, and the Stars guide you back”, she says, as her wrinkled forehead touches Furiosa’s.

“Mother, give me strength” she answers, as it is expected of her.

“Your mother would be proud of you” Griep finishes, moving to touch foreheads with Cura.

Her heart clenches a bit, as memories of another woman’s forehead touching hers, saying the same prayer, fill her head.

_Mother, give me strength._

There are three vehicles leaving the Citadel, but Furiosa wants the women all together on the same. Toast is driving, so Furiosa is free to shoot, scanning the endless desert for the invisible enemies she knows are lurking in the sand.

They reach Gas Town after a couple of hours driving.

The outskirts of the town buzz with a low hum, people coming and going, not really understanding what is going on, scared when they see three armed rigs from the Citadel, but no fuel pod attached to any of them. As they make their way deeper into the city, a small convoy emerges, the Flamers in it with their guns trained at them.

“Drive slower” Furiosa says to Toast. Capable, Cheedo and Cura have their guns on their laps, loaded and ready to fire, just as she does, but Furiosa gives them no indication to use them. She doubts The Sisters are actually ready to fire a gun. There is tension pouring from them, and fear. She keeps her cool despite her own angst, puts a great effort in keeping it. Reaching out in Toast direction, never taking her eyes from the cars driving towards them, she dirties her fingers with the black engine grease, smearing it on her forehead, around her eyes.

_Mother, give me strength._

The convoy stops, blocking their way further, and Toast kills the engines. The War Boys on the cars behind quickly following.

“Who goes there?” one of the Flamers screams from his bike.

“I am Furiosa Jobassa. From the Citatdel and The Green Place of Many Mothers”. She does not have any other name, that’s who she is, and lying about it is a mistake. “I’m here to talk to the ruler of Gas Town”, she motions for the door of the car, the rifle and three different guns tied to her body.

A bald man leaves one of their cars, heavily armed as well, followed by a small entourage of minions.

Their new ruler.

Part of the reason it took her so long to make this trip to the nearby cities was to give them time to settle. Both of the rulers of Gas Town and Bullet Farm were dead. Dead from following their supposed stronger ally on an erratic chase. It was not Furiosa’s intention to rule over those places – it was not her intention to rule _at all_. However, as time passed, it became clear that, if she wanted The Citadel to become the new Green Place of her dreams, if she wanted a future for the women she rescued, for the poor people that surrounded the place, and – hell – to _herself_ , she needed either make an alliance with whoever was ruling these places, or to conquer them.

The women leave the car as well, their guns pointed at the men approaching. They looked fierce, regardless of their fear. Or maybe because of it. Furiosa remembers Katie’s voice, clear in her mind, from so many dawns ago:

_Fear is fuel._

She walks in front of them, leading the cortege.

“The Furious Furiosa” the man starts when they are close enough. “The Bag of Nails. Killer of Gods. The Feral Creature of the Roads”. His voice a jeer, dripping sarcasm.

She does not flinch when he names her. He could call her whatever he wants: killer, creature, whore. She’d heard it before, had not changed who she was. She remains unfazed, taking a good look at this man.

Furiosa knows him. Recognizes him from her past trips to Gas Town. He was one of the commanders in the People Eater’s army. The Blind General, that’s what he is called. He dresses in clothes with green, brown and black patterns, wears a beret on his baldhead, and an eye patch on his right eye. Hardly a figure one would forget.

“I thought I saw your rig on the desert a few days ago” Furiosa starts, keeping her voice steady and calm. It’s a bluff, of course. She does not remember every car chasing her on their infamous escape through the Fury Road. It’s just a way to find out how he came to take control of Gas Town.

“The People Eater was a bit smarter than old Joe.” He answers. “He sent us back to secure the city when the canyon first came down. Best move ever, don’t you reckon?”

_Indeed_. Furiosa does not say a word.

“What’s your business here?”

“I’m here for an alliance” she states unflinchingly, her voice hard as stone.

The General tilts his head to the side, narrowing his eye.

“And why would I do such a thing?” he bounces the rifle on his hand, and Furiosa can feel Cura tensing at her right. “You think you can barge your way in here, all mighty and tall, just because you surrounded yourself with those pretty things?”

The reaction is immediate. Cheedo’s, Toast’s and Capable’s guns emerge as one, aiming nervously at the General’s head.

“We are not things!”

_We are not things._

Toast says it, but it is Angharad’s voice in Furiosa’s head. And Valkyrie’s, and Katie’s, and her Mother’s, and _her own_.

The man coils a bit, maybe surprised with the backlash. His Flamers also angle their guns at them, ready to fire. The General signals with the slightest of hand movements, halting his men and recovering fast from the surprise.

“Because I have what you need, and vice-versa” Furiosa finally answers, fighting an inner war to remain calm. “And we are not _things_ ”.

He laughs a humorless laugh.

“You cannot trade your produce if you don’t have gas on your ride, Imperator”.

“Guzzoline is of little use to you, if you are running on empty stomachs and dried throats”.

It’s true, and he knows it.

“I can find other partners” the Blind General finally answers, after the seconds stretched in silence.

It’s true, and _she_ knows it.

“None as profitable as we can be”.

Throughout the thousands of days she was held a prisoner of some sort at the Citadel, in one way or another, Furiosa had learned valuable lessons on how to survive. The power of bargain was one of those lessons. She was far from being a skilled politician, neither was she interested in being one. Yet, she had mastered the art of hiding her anxieties, guising them with coolness and certainty. It never came so in handy as it does now. She knew how to read people and was a ferocious player on the mind games. When you mask your most desperate need with a bright sheet of unquestionable logic, it seems like you have nothing to lose.

“We’ve been through Joe’s files” she starts again. “The deal he had with the People Eater was a good one. We can keep it, improve it. Or we can part as indifferent strangers and let this thing turn to dust. It’s up to you”.

He laughs again, the sound of it starting to make her sick.

“You have some balls, for a woman”.

Like she hadn’t heard _that_ one before.

“Let me make one thing clear, Imperator. I do not like you.” He gives half a step ahead, standing now less than a meter away from Furiosa. She can smell the sour stench of his sweat. “You come here with your nice words and your smart offers, but the truth is you’re all hollowed up on the high grounds of The Citadel, surrounded by women, children and sick Boys. What good are you as a partner, a _commercial ally_?” he spits on the ground, abhorring the words. “You killed a man whose name was bigger than he was, and now you are left with the scraps of his kingdom. No good deed goes unpunished. You are weak and inept to lead. Words spread like the wind, and there’s nothing you can do to stop it. Vengeance will come upon you, and it _will_ claim its pound of flesh”.

“Is this a threat, General?” her fist clutches so tightly she’s sure her nails have torn the palm of her hand to the point of bleeding.

“I need not to move a finger. I’ll just have to watch” he looks around her, to the women surrounding her, the War Boys that follow them, his eye finally resting back on hers. “Who are you to come here and make demands?”

She closes the distance between them, seeing with the corner of her eyes the guns trained at her, triggers ready to fire. Furiosa takes a deep breath, ignoring the stench, focusing on the wind and the sand and the Sun, on the water and the green far away and the promise of _living_ rather than simply surviving the future holds.

“We are The Splendid Sisters and Brothers of The Citadel, the new Green Place of the West” her voice never falters. “You can threaten us, attack us, cage us. You can _try_. But if you think we will coil in fear, or ever give up, or ever give in, you’ve got a rough ride ahead of you, General. You deem me weak and unfit, but I’ve been to hell and back again too many times to bother with whatever you have spared for me. I crossed the Fury Road surrounded by women, children and sick Boys”. _And Max_. She had Max. “We barged our way through three war parties, and left behind the bodies of three warlords. What do _you_ think you got on us?”

“I’m not the one you should worry. What are you going to do when war comes bursting at your door?”

“Retaliate first."

She always had, and she always will.

The man stares at her with a clinical eye, a hunter assessing its prey. Never one to happily play the part, Furiosa stands as tall as she can, not wavering, the rise and fall of her chest steady and calm, an antithesis to the thundering beats of her heart.

_Fear is fuel._

It takes so long for him to speak again, Furiosa’s hand is almost twitching for her gun, ready to fight at any moment. Whatever he was looking for with his piercing gaze, after the moments span, he finds it.

“Come back in two days. Bring the water.”

She fights the urge to breathe out her relieve.

“Very well” she nods subtly instead, turning her back, ready to leave.

“You double-cross me, Imperator” he starts sharply, and Furiosa halts without turning to face him, “and I’ll jam three bullets at the back of that pretty neck of yours”.

The mention brings memories of another man who had the chance to put three bullets at the back of her neck, but chose to waste them in the sand.

“I’ll extend you the same courtesy”.

When they reach the rig, Furiosa takes the wheel, maneuvering it as fast as she can out of Gas Town, never looking back.

“Wouldn’t it be better if I drove?” Toast asks, her voice small. She shakes her head lightly, changing gears with a tiny bit more force than what it’s necessary. And yes, she did drew blood from her hand. There’s blood and grease on her gear now, and suddenly, Furiosa feels strangely at home. “I mean, there are still scouts hiding in the dunes. You don’t think they will come for us?”

“Let them come."

They don’t.


	5. Chapter 5

When she thinks about it, it amazes her vastly.

Furiosa never wanted to learn the names of the Sisters. She heard them calling each other, but throughout the duration of their escape, she never once said it. Names had a different meaning in the desert. Giving one your name willingly to someone was akin to expose your neck to a stranger bearing a knife. Receiving it was the same. It required the utmost trust, and some kind of bond between the parts. Max was aware of that, only giving her his name when all seemed lost.

She did not want to be close to those women. They were just part of a plan, another way to strike Joe where it hurt the most. By the end of the journey, though, and through those first days of the reconstruction of The Citadel, she came to wonder how blind she had been. How blind Joe had.

He was a violent, sadist, egomaniac psychopath, no doubt about that. But he was definitely not stupid. If he saw the slimmest bit of chance of making profit out of something, he would, without a moment of hesitation. How, then, how could he not see these women – his _Wives_ – for what they truly were? How come he looked at them and saw nothing but breeding stock?

 

 

Dag plants all of the Kepper’s seeds with reverence and care, as if she is planting their future along with them. Furiosa thinks that, in reality, she is. When the buds start to bloom and sprout, she drafts both Cura and Griep to help identify what the new seedlings are, starts to catalogue them, deciding what should be moved to the high gardens, what should remain in the greenhouse within the Towers, what can be used for food and what can be used for medicine.

“If we keep the rate as it is,” Cura starts one day, while they walk through the gardens “it will be less than a hundred days and then we’ll run out of food”.

It is a glooming thought that has crossed Furiosas’s mind more than once. They want to keep feeding the Wretched – the _people_ , she corrects herself –, but they also need produce for trading. The negotiations with Bullet Farm were a lot milder than with Gas Town, probably because their new ruler was not half as cunning as The Blind General, but they still needed a trading currency. Water was the most important, of course, but she doubted that her alliance with Gas Town would stand long if she simply stopped providing them with food.

“We need to be able to store the food. If we depend on fresh crops all the time, we’ll run empty real quickly”.

“I know” Furiosa answers the old woman, trying not to sound harsh. However, storing fresh food in the desert is close to impossible. Joe never cared about that, so the records are not any good to help them. He had very few mouths to feed, allowing him to use all the produce left for trading, not giving half a damn about the people starving around The Citadel’s towers. The Vuvalini, it seems, are also at lost. From what Furiosa remembers of her old home place, there were fields and crops in abundance for all; paucity was never an issue. And when it became one, it apparently stroke them so hard, they had to flee. This is a problem Furiosa had anticipated, but solved.

It is then that Dag, falling graciously to her knees to puckers some dry leafs from a growing bush, says:

“Why don’t we paste them?”

To answer Furiosa and Cura’s questioning silence, she continues:

“We’ve got beans, nuts and vegetables here,” she points every plant with a long and slim arm. “If we cook them, drain them and dry them, we can scrunch them to a paste, put salt in it, and it will last for a very long time”.

“How do you know this, child?”

Dag speaks with the experience of those who have done it before, and Furiosa is reminded that she, too, was stolen from wherever she was from to serve as Immortan Joe’s wife. She had a life, a good one. And the fact she never showed any signs of wanting to go back can only mean that, like the Green Place of her childhood, Dag’s home no longer exists.

The girl shrugs her shoulders nonchalantly, moving a little bit to examine another bush. “We can use the edible leafs to wrap the paste, make portions”.

Furiosa is aware she is staring at Dag, but she cannot help it.

“I also know how to make soap,” she continues, as if she feels the need to make herself credible “and a cream for the aching muscles with those flowers over there. Smells really sweet.” she points to a small shrub, packed with purple flowers.

Cura openly laughs, the wrinkles around her eyes getting more pronounced while the sound travels with the wind on the high gardens. The corners of Furiosa’s lips curve upwards, involuntarily, and the movement startles her a bit. It’s been so long since she felt the urge to smile.

She finds she can get used to it again.

 

***

 

The Organic Mechanic’s lair was a place Furiosa had been avoiding. Memories of having a gun pressed to her head, while they forced her to spread her legs to be examined still had a way to make her skin crawl every time she paid a visit.

Today, however, her attention is drawn to the place. She is on her way down to the bridge between the Towers, when she sees a small cluster of Boys lined up at the entrance of the place. Furiosa knows Cheedo and Cura had been running a makeshift infirmary there. It had surprised her that Cheedo, of all Sisters, would choose such a task. Cura, however, had reassured her of the girl’s resolve and dedication. Approaching them, she hears the Boys whispering and hissing to one another.

“Is he awake yet?”

“Don’t know.”

“Did it work? Did it work?”

“Shhh! Be quiet!”

There is a crease in Furiosa’s brow. What the hell is going on?

They greet her when she passes by. Small nods of their heads, murmurs of “Boss”. One of them is bold enough to ask:

“Is he going to be okay, Boss?”

She expected them to be frightened of her upon their return, that their trust on her would take as long to rebuild itself as hers on them. It still surprises her that the opposite had happened.

“Kero, what’s happening?” she asks, instead of answering him.

“Is Ace, Boss. He’s supposed to wake up today”.

_Ace?_

Furiosa walks pass them, entering the lair. Cheedo and Cura are bended on one of the stone beds, the girl speaking with a low soothing voice to a Boy that lays asleep there. And, sure enough, it’s Ace.

Ace was a sore wound on Furiosa’s consciousness. She was never overly attached to the War Boys that worked with her along the many dawns under Joe’s reign. Far from it. They came and they went, too caught up in the empty promises of an old man and their suicidal dreams of Valhalla. And there was also the sickness, whatever that malady was that grew lumps under their skin and ravaged their lives. Yet Ace somehow had survived all that; was stronger than the others and rarely got sick. He soon became a trusted sergeant under Furiosa’s command. To betray him on the Fury Road had surprisingly stung more painfully than she would have expected. It made her wonder if she was to blame as much as Joe was for the death of those Boys.

Ace’s body is devoid of any white paint, but his skin is ashen. There are tight splints on both on his legs, and traces of road wounds all over the place, but they seem to be mostly healed. She never knew he had survived the Fury Road. Never bothered to ask. Giving him a more attentive look, what gets her attention are the bandages on his neck and shoulders, covering the parts where his lumps used to be.

“Can someone explain to me what’s going on?”

Cheedo has the decency to look a bit ashamed. Cura does not react at all.

“He’s been here with us since he came back from the road with the others. Both of his legs were broken, and he was so weak. The lumps were killing him faster. So… we… I decided to remove them”.

The girl spills her answer fast, while taking short intakes of breath, She’s nervous and it shows, like she had been caught doing something forbidden.

“And who said this was a good idea? _You_ could have killed him even faster”. It’s one thing to mend their bones, bandage their wounds. Surgery of this kind is a completely different scheme. Furiosa looks at Cura. “You condone this?”

“It’s not like we haven’t seen this kind of illness among our people” the older woman shrugs. “There are half-lives everywhere”.

“I knew it could be done” Cheedo intervenes “I heard Corpus talk to Joe once, while I was being examined here” her eyes roam the room, and Furiosa can _see_ the memory forming in front of her. “They’d done it. But it took too long for them to recover. Joe would not have the work haltered because of convalescent War Boys. It was easier just to hook them up with Blood-Bags”.

_Typical_. Furiosa crosses her arms in front of her chest.

“Did you even ask him?” she points Ace with her eyes.

“Of course I did!” Cheedo sounds offended.

The other Boys are peering from the door, curious about their companion’s fate. Hopeful for what could be theirs. She exhales. Even if this works, it does not mean they will be saved.

“I don’t want you lifting their hopes on this, Cheedo. Or yours, for the matter”.

Ever since their Revolution, Cheedo has had this look on her face. Like she will be able to save the world now that she is free. There are big plans to feed the people, expand the water pipes, plant crops on the ground surrounding the Towers. She tends to their wounds and listens to their stories, filling herself with hope and radiating it. Furiosa knows better, though. Max had taught her well.

_If you can’t fix what’s broken, you’ll go insane._

“I don’t know if it will work” she begins, her hand resting softly on Ace’s. “I never promised him anything other than the fact that I would try. It seemed enough for him”.

The Boy chooses this moment to stir under Cheedo’s touch. His eyes open and it takes a long time for them to focus on something. When they do, he is staring at Furiosa.

“Hi Boss”.

She never knew the color of his eyes. _How could she not know_? Dark blue. His voice is thick and hoarse, shaky and frail. It pulls on the strings of her heart and Furiosa can feel a lump forming in her throat.

“Hey Sarge” she forces herself to say. “Ready to hit the garage shop?”

A small smile curves on his lips. If he is in pain, he does not show.

“Ready when you are, Boss”.

There is no accusation in his tone, no anger. He looks at her as if she never threw him off her War Rig, almost killing him. Does not blame her for the two broken legs he had to use to crawl his way back to the Citadel.

Furiosa feels like crying.

She doesn’t, though. Cheedo moves to her side, grabs her flesh hand and gives it a reassuring clutch.

“He will be fine. We will take care of them. It will be alright”.

_You will be alright._

She does not say it, but Furiosa can read it in her gaze.

They nod to each other, and Cheedo releases her hand, her attentions back to the twitching Ace. Cura gives her an understanding look that Furiosa fails to comprehend herself.

She leaves the alcove feeling oddly reassured, but not without wondering when the words of a naïve little girl became enough to bolster her fears and guilt.

 

***

 

Capable finds her on the Repair Boys’ shop one afternoon, while Furiosa works on one of the engines for the new War Rig they are assembling.

“I’m ready” the girl says, with a soft but firm voice.

There is a pack of children behind her, as always these days. Furiosa finds it easier to call them children now that their small bodies are not covered in white pain, and their eyes are devoid of black grease. She lays the wrench on her hands at the side of the engine, takes a peak at the excited children, at Capable, and waits until the young woman continues.

“I read all the files, all the books” she clarifies, “I’ve been studying the spare parts we have, and the cars. I can be as much a Blackthumb as they can” she points to the Boys working on different vehicles around them.

“I want to help.” It is her final statement and she waits for Furiosa’s answer.

She looks gravely at the girl. Her flaming red hair is braided back on a ponytail. She no longer bears the aery and unpractical rags assigned to a Wife: now, she wears leather pants that stop at her knees, a tunic obviously too big for her, but that was tightened and curled around her upper body in a way that does not affect her movements; and her combat boots that look a lot like Furiosa’s.

She takes a big breath before answering the anxious girl.

“Why?”

Furiosa is not asking why she wants to help. That would be the stupidest of questions, and the other woman knows it. Capable is not a mechanic. She has a keen ability to read people, and her words always sound right to whoever hears them. That is mostly the reason why she has a small horde of Boys following her around half the time. Getting dirty with grease and muffled by the sharp clang of metal all day long does not seem to go accordingly with such talents.

Capable looks at her feet, fidgets a bit with her hands before answering seriously and flatly:

“You know why”.

Furiosa sights. Yes, she does indeed. It wasn’t fair what happened to Capable. The moment she was free to feel whatever she wanted for whomever she wanted, it was taken away from her, abruptly and violently. Nux was his name, the Boy they lost, that made their escape possible with his death.

For a moment, she dares to allow her thoughts to stretch towards Max. It’s different, though. Max is not completely lost. Lost to her, maybe; still looking for redemption in the desert, not realizing he will never find it there. Perhaps that’s why Furiosa wastes her nights sitting on her window curb, gazing at the desert, helpless for the things she cannot change, hoping he will come to terms with that and show up on the horizon, heading back to her.

_Hope is a mistake._

“It’s just…” Capable starts, tentative, as if afraid to disturb the silence between them “I like to think he would be proud of me. That I’m doing this for us, for me. But also for him”.

It doesn’t seem right that these girls had to go through so much to reach this level of maturity and wisdom. But then again, so did she, and so, so _many_ others. The world they live in is neither right nor fair. It crushes the softhearted and has little patience for the mourners. She sights again. If Capable wants to deal with her lost by doing something useful, she will not stop her. It is better than what Furiosa herself has been doing, anyway.

“Okay” she answers, finding she had always known her answer, regardless of the pondering she heralded.

There is a moment of incredulity on Capable’s eyes, followed shortly by a glee of utter happiness, as the girl plunges forward and almost knocks Furiosa’s breath out with a hug.

“Thank you!” she says in her ear “I promise you won’t regret.”

“Sure” she says, grabbing the forgotten wrench beside the engine and throwing it in Capable’s direction. By now, she is used to the highly physical demonstrations of affection by the Sisters. “Alright. Now get to work”.

She directs the children to busy themselves with other things: carrying parts from here to there, helping with the hydraulics, since they are doing some implementations on the cars as well as on the water pumps on the aquifer.

After a few moments working in companiable silence, a though occurs to Furiosa, and she turns to Capable:

“Do you even _know_ how to drive?”

She hesitates a bit, bites her lips, but looks her straight in the eyes.

“That’s just a small detail, right?”

_The devil is in the detail_. Katie’s voice rings in her ears as she remembers the words. Capable, however, lets a small laugh escape her lips, goes back to tightening screws on the engine in front of her, looking happier than she had been in such a long time, Furiosa thinks it couldn’t possibly be so much of a problem.

She can always teach her one of these days.

 

***

 

Of the three Towers on the Citadel, the East one is her favorite. Not just because it faces the Green Place she grew up, or because the wind that swirls into it carries the faintest smell of freshness, of home. What she really likes is the solitude, the peacefulness of staring at the vast wasteland that stretches itself by the moonlight, just for her. It transpires a sense of calmness that has always antagonized her war-filled days.

Furiosa finds Toast leaning on a wall near the opening window, a lamp on each of her sides and neat piles of the Citadel’s files on her feet. There is a rifle on her lap and a big pair of binoculars dangling from her neck. She was supposed to be on watch tonight, and she is playing the part quite well. The scarf that covers her head hides her gaze, making it harder to know if she notices her approach.

“You’ve got to give it to the guy…” she starts when Furiosa is within ear range, not looking at her, flipping keenly on the sheets at her hands. “He was highly organized. There are records of everything. _Absolutely_ everything.”

Furiosa inspects the piles, not really being able to discern what is written on any of them due to the poor lighting.

“These are the inventories of the garage shop, all the parts and tools. There was also a pile with the car designs, but Capable already took those”.

A small smiles curves on Furiosa’s lips. Of course she did.

“Here are the trading files; everything in and out of the Citadel was recorded: greens, water, guzzoline, bullets. There are even fluctuation rates among the tribes they traded with!” her enthusiasm is almost contagious. “These are the notes from the Organic Machanic” she points to some dark leather books separated on the furthest corner “Someone is going to have to decipher those; the man’s handwriting was a nightmare! Although, I could make out Max’s entry. They didn’t call him Max, of course. Called him The Mad Man” it doesn’t amaze her, he did looked like a mad man for most of the time they spent together. “Oh, and here are the engineering records. Did you know they were building another pump on the South Tower? That’s what that big hole is all about. And they were almost done! I mean, if we continue where they left, we can pump more water from the aquifer in no time. They also have a plumbing system within the North Tower that we can improve to reach the people at the bottom”.

Toast stops, taking a breathe, and Furiosa can still feel the smile plastered on her face.

“You’ve been busy” she says, finally.

The girl shrugs, chews on the toothpick hanging from her lips.

“I like reading”.

Furiosa moves a bit closer to her and spots a neat white notebook, cleaner than the rest of the files, tucked under Toast’s thigh.

“And this?” she asks, pointing at the hidden object.

The muscles on the girl’s jaw tense. She looks away from Furiosa, into the starlit amplitude of the desert.

“It’s just trash”.

She moves to sit next to her, careful not to stomp on the tidily arranged piles. Softly and with calculated movements, she removes the book from under Toast’s thigh. Joe’s infamous skull is printed on the cover, and she is not surprised in the least when she finds out what is written in it.

“I told you they kept a record of everything” the girl’s voice is nothing more than a whisper, devoid of any emotion.

Names. Women’s names. Tables and tables with their age, origin, hair and eyes color, how many days they were Immortan Joe’s wives, how many children they bore him, how many were males.

What was done to them after they were no longer useful.

“I didn’t find your name in it” Toast says. Furiosa’s brows raises upwards and she quietly stares at the girl. “Oh, please! You think I haven’t figured it out by now?”

No, she didn’t.

“Everyone we’ve ever reached for help, every single one of them, never bothered to believe us” she starts, “They thought we had the good life. As if being Joe’s wife was every female’s goal within a radius of ten kilometers”.

She is disgusted, voice cracking with angry tears.

“You, though,” she sniffs and continues “You knew. From the very first moment, you knew. I could see it in your eyes, on the way you clenched your fist when Angharad said she was his favorite, you understood what it felt like. The hell that it was”.

Furiosa looks at the desert, the stars, feels the cold breeze sweeping into the Tower and grazing her skin. This is the past. It cannot harm her any more than it already did. And she had survived, had risen triumphal from the ashes of the man that had enslaved her. It was okay to talk about it.

“He never knew my name” she begins, still gazing out of the window. The minutes draw, Toast does not try to fill them and Furiosa finds she can do this, she can be open with this woman who has suffered just as she has. “Not back then, at least. Anyway, it would be useless; he would not have listened. He called me The Sparkling Diamond of the Desert. Or Spark, when he was feeling lazy”.

Toast removes the book from her hands and opens it, her finger running through the names of countless lost women. When she finds what she is looking for, she pauses, an incredulous look on her face.

“You were fourteen”.

Furiosa just stares at her.

Toast shakes her head, her hand absentmindedly touching the mark on the back of her neck.

“Did you run?”

“Many times. They would always bring me back”.

“How did you get out, then?”

There is a lump on her throat, and shivers running on her skin she is sure have nothing to do with the wind.

_This is the past._

“They had to chain me to be… to be bred”. _It’s okay_ , she repeats to herself. _It’s okay_. “I always put up a fight, even with the cuffs. One day, I broke my wrist from pulling too hard on too tight a chain. They patched me up, but I kept finding ways to keep it broken”. After that, every time Joe came to her, there was added pain to the act: the pain of being raped, the pain of failing to fight back, the excruciating pain in her arm. Keeping herself physically hurt was her way to defy Joe, the last bit of freedom she withheld back then. “I’d seen a girl be tossed away for being sick for too long. I hoped they would just deem me damaged and do the same. It didn’t take long for me to wake up one morning with a high fever and half of my arm tainted black”. Miss Giddy had been terrified, for Furiosa and for herself, for letting it happen. “He was pissed. Don’t know why he didn’t kill me right then and there. Instead, he chopped off my arm, as if it was a personal insult to him, and threw me out. He knew I was not going to make it on my own; he was just having some fun with his prey. I hid, though. Survived, with the pain and out of scraps, until I was strong enough to work on the garage, become a warrior”.

There was more, of course. There was _that_. But tonight was not the time for _that_. Tonight, she had come here for Toast. Her little disembosoming having now reached a point where she could talk about what she really meant climbing up the stairs of the East Tower. “I shaved my hair, smeared grease on my forehead, and the next time I faced him, I was not one of his things anymore. He had no clue of who I was. Only then did I gave him the name my mother bestowed me.”

Furiosa carefully lifts the scarf from Toast’s face, revealing her shaved head, black grease on the young woman’s forehead.

Toast looks away from her, suddenly ashamed.

“You thought I wouldn’t notice it?” she asks, trying to keep her voice soft.

“Thought it would take longer” the girl huffs. “By then, I’d have come up with a better excuse”.

“What’s the current one?”

“Isn’t it obvious?”

There is a pause filled by the desert silence.

“I want to be like you. So… _desperately_. You’re the embodiment of everything I wanted to be even before I became a wife, and especially after. You are the hero they sing about in the old songs, brave and fierce. You saved us! People look at you and they see a chance, they see hope”.

Furiosa tries to push back Max’s whisper about hope.

Toast’s words are hard on her. Admiration is a burden she has avoided like the plague. Now, cornered by it, she has no other choice but to fight back.

“Listen to me” she raises her hand and gently cups Toast’s cheek. The motion is clumsy; she does not remember how to be gentle. “I’m as much a coward as I’m brave. It took guts to run every time, but every time I ran, I was alone. I cared little for the dozens of women I saw falling prey to the old prick. You, on the other hand, only ran when you could all run. It takes more guts to stay behind”. Furiosa realizes, as the words leave her lips, that she believes them. “To survive, I’ve cheated my way up and killed without remorse. You’ve been kind and merciful with those who deserve it. I’m still shackled by the sins I’ve committed, still trying to atone for them, find redemption”. She can never escape her own trial, the judgement she passes on herself far more ruthless than anyone else’s. “But you have no guilt, you are free. You don’t have to be me, Toast. Being yourself is so much better. Harder, yeah. But better all the same”.

The stubborn tears on Toast’s eyes finally fall. Furiosa tenderly cleans them away, smearing black grease on the girl’s cheeks.

“You want to shave your head and paint your brows, fine. Griep tells me you have a killer aim, and God knows we could use more of those. But make it for you and no one else. Don’t make me your symbol. I’m a terrible one”.

Toast gazes her for a moment, turning then to the white book on her lap. She throws the thing throughout the window with a smile on her face.

“You are better than that butt ugly skull”.

_Oh, well._

She cannot argue with that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This ended up being a huge chapter, but I could not bring myself to split the stories. More Max on the coming chapters. :)


	6. Chapter 6

Max drives.

He takes a certain pleasure in the action. It keeps his mind focused, his vision clearer.

The ghosts are there, of course. Never too far behind: the feeble whispers of a young girl, the helpless howls of a woman. They cry for help and scream of abandonment, but through the rumble of his engine and the blowing of the wind outside, their voices are muffled, their figures dim.

There are stops here and there. He trades bullets for food, labor for guzzoline, but he avoids people as much as he can, and blindly chases sunset after sunset, as much as a mad man would do to a mirage.

He is not completely sure this is not the case.

The world he lives in is a shattered one, but beautiful in all of its pieces. There are no bluer skies than the one hung above the desert on a cloudless day; the stars shine their brightest in the wasteland, coloring the sand blue along with the moonlight. Max wonders when he ceased to notice those things, but also when he started noticing them _back_.

He goes down a hill and is surprised by what he finds behind it. He has reached The Salt again, on the other extremity of the wasteland. The night wind coming through his window is colder here, sending salt crystals swirling in a delicate dance until they brush against his cheeks. It almost feel like a caress.

As he leaves the car and walks into the eerie white expanse, he thinks it doesn’t look so different here, at this far West corner, from what it did in the East, a lifetime ago.

It is, however, a bit quieter than last time.

There is a forlorn atmosphere in this place, as if it should be bustling with people but is now deserted and silent.

He tightens the black scarf around his neck, thankful to have it still. He remembers finding it hanging on his gifted bike, a small piece of her she’d left behind before they parted, supposedly forever. He only regrets time having erased the hazy scent she’d left on it. It made her feel realer.

_“Do you know what their names are?”_

By now, he is more than used to Furiosa’s voice, and doesn’t flinch when hearing it anymore.

Looking up, he says “Some.”

Orion, Aquila, Pegasus, Draco. Yes, he can still name the stars.

_“But can you hear what they say?”_

The question brings a smile to his lips.

"Well, thou will say, hearing stars! Certainly, thou have lost your mind!" Max starts reciting.

Her voice is softer than usual when she continues with the poem.

_“And I’ll say to thou: ‘Love to understand them! Because only he who loves may have ears able enough to hear and understand the stars’."_

Is it all lost in this world? Broken beyond repair? It sure doesn’t seem like it right now, under this celestial dome, with Furiosa’s sensual, ariose tone whispering lost poems in his ears. Max feels a bit intoxicated, light weighted, recollecting memories forgotten for so long, he did not think them salvageable anymore. The corners of his brain had been less dark in recent times, tempting him to dig deeper into his subconscious. Surely, this must mean something.

He lays on his back on the salt, giving some rest to his bad knee and staring at the cosmos. Talking to Furiosa is also a way to keep his ghosts at bay. He has this ridiculous fantasy that they are actually afraid of her, and because of that, keep more quiet. He hasn’t seen a soul, both real and not, for the past five days on the road, the longest since he left The Citadel. Max is pretty sure he is alone, which allows him to almost relax.

“You wanted me to come here” he starts talking. His voice barely above a whisper, nearly vanishing in a stronger gust “’m here. Now, what?”

_“Depends on what you want”_ Furiosa answers.

“ _You_ told me to go West.”

_“Fool”_ she starts, softly _. “You wanted a direction. I gave you one. Any direction is good if you don’t know where you are going”._

Sometimes, Max wonders if the real Furiosa could be this infuriating, or if he just made that up.

“Back to square one, then” he says between grunts. He still doesn’t know what the fuck to do next.

_“You could just go on.”_

He sits then, hugging his knees, gazing at the silent plains.

“Is certain death, that way” Just as it was when _she_ wanted to head East.

_“Death is unavoidable.”_ Her voice is flat, devoid of the softness it had just a few moments ago.

“Thought you wanted me alive” he is surprised at how disappointed he sounds.

The silence stretches for so long, he thinks his mind is done conjuring auditory hallucinations for today. But then:

_“No. I want you to live”._

The difference is so grand and so utterly terrifying, it sends chills down his spine. Sure, he feels himself a bit more human as of lately. Still, most of this feeling is due to the fact he’s been having conversations with a voice inside his head. It’s just another testimony of his insanity. She is usually gentle, yes, and most of the time her suggestions lead to a better outcome than he had initially though. He is less wild with her. It was true on the Fury Road and it’s true now, with Furiosa as the new voice of his consciousness. Giving the sanest part of his brain her voice has somehow given purpose to his actions. It doesn’t, by any means, conveys that Max is ready for _life_. Living is the hardest task of all, perhaps too hard for him. It involves opening up willingly, accepting the pain and heartache intrinsic to the act, baring oneself without a fight. He has been fighting for too long, and old habits die a rather slow death.

“Don’t know how” he finally says. “Not anymore.”

_“Of course you do. It’s what you’ve been trying to do for the past fifty eight days.”_

To live? No, for sure, not.

“Been runnin’, is all. Is what I always do.” Max lost the moment when her voice had stopped gently reciting poems in his ears and started jamming uncomfortable truths down his throat, making his chest constrict.

_“No, you’ve been searching. It’s also part of life. You’ve just been searching on the wrong place.”_

The hidden meaning behind her last sentence is not lost to him. It amazes him that there is a conscious part of him that wants his redemption to be in the place he has purposely left behind. At the same time, it just makes it more difficult to come up with excuses to keep looking for it anywhere else. He feels fractured, split in two with this need to belong somewhere, belong _to_ someone, and knowing full well he will fuck it up the first chance he gets. It’s so much easier to be lost, and to remain lost. Moving both hands through his hair, he lets the keen desperation set on him.

“I can’t go back.”

Max runs, and breaks, and kills. He destroys, fights, and then he leaves. There’s not enough water in the world to clean the blood from his hands. Wherever he goes, he takes himself with him, all of his broken pieces, his sorrow and his crushing guilt. He can never stay, and he can never, ever go back.

_“You’ve saved as well.”_ Furiosa reminds him.

Out of desperation, yes. Because he had no choice. The alternative, to watch her die, was not really an alternative, which made it easy. Because somewhere between those silences they shared, Furiosa infected him with something he hasn’t yet dared to name. Some strange disease that turned him into this shapeless mess that is half agony and half hope. There is an emptiness in his chest now he is pretty sure would not be there if it weren’t for her. He is pretty sure he would not have this urgent need to fill it if it weren’t for her, either.

_“They might need your help.”_

“They have you. No need for me.”

Furiosa – the _real_ Furiosa, not this feeble, pale shadow his brain had summoned – was stronger and fiercer than he would ever be. Whatever evilness men like Immortan Joe had left behind, it was people like her that would make it right. Not him. Never him.

_“Not them,”_ she says. Not Furiosa nor the Wives. Not the War Boys nor the Wretched. _“Them.”_

He sees _them_ in his mind eye. The other people. The ones on the road, wandering aimless in the desert; the ones on the camps and settlements, dying slow deaths by hunger, thirst and disease.

“I… I can’t…”

He is weak and haunted. He has forgotten how _not_ to hurt. Others _and_ himself.

_“You can.”_ Just a whisper. An idea. As dangerous and inescapable as the warm feeling growing inside him. Is it enough? Is it enough to hope? Is it even possible?

“I have nothing to offer.” He is an empty shell, there is nothing left to share but violence.

_“Hope, Fool. You can give them hope. Can’t you see?”_

Max closes his eyes and when he thinks of hope, he sees three stone towers rising from the ground. He sees green and water. He sees _her_.

_“It will be a hard day”_ she says.

And he has to laugh. So hard it is almost hysterical. The sound reverberates in the silence and it dawns on him just exactly how alone he is. Not just alone, but lonely. He had never thought about it. Had never even been aware of it. The extent of his loneliness hits him so hard it makes him choke.

“’m unworthy.” He is. There is nothing he can do to change that.

_“Maybe along the way you’ll find your better self.”_

There is something building up inside him, light and quavering and warm. Anticipation? Fear? Hope?

Max gets up, cleaning the salt from his pants and jacket, and heads for the car.

“Waste of guzzoline” he mumbles, peeved. “Could’ve just said so if you wanted me back all along.”

_“But then you wouldn’t have heard the stars”_ Furiosa says as if it was obvious. _“Aren’t they beautiful?”_

They are, indeed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The poem (actually, is a sonnet) Max recites is called "Milky Way", by Olavo Bilac. Here is the full, translated version of it:
> 
> "Well (thou´ll say) hearing stars! Certainly  
> Thou´ve lost your mind!" And I´ll say to thee, however  
> That, to hear them, many times I wake  
> And open the windows, palid in awe...
> 
> And we talk all night long, while  
> The milky way, as an open canopy,  
> Shines. And, at the coming of the sun, missing and crying,  
> I still look for them in the desert sky.
> 
> Thou´ll now say: "Crazed friend!  
> What do thou talk to them? What sense  
> Has what they say, when they are with thee?"
> 
> And I´ll say to thou: "Love to understand them!  
> Because only he who loves may have ears  
> Able of hearing and understanding stars." 
> 
> I have this fantasy that Max was a curious teenage boy, meddling on old books and records before the end of the world. Just go with me on this... :)


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’ve read some amazing fic in which bolt cutters are the symbol of The Citadel (like “Orbit”, and if you haven’t read it yet, you should). I’ve decided to play with / pay homage to the idea a little.

“It’s a bolt cutter”

“It is _not_ a bolt cutter.”

“Looks like a bolt cutter.”

“Is it a problem if it’s a bolt cutter?”

_“It’s not a damn bolt cutter!”_

Laughter is something the wasteland has taught Furiosa to cherish like a treasure. There was so much hardship throughout her life, so much suffering. The ability to laugh freely and warmly was a gift she had ceased to possess.

Designing the new symbol for The Citadel started as something serious and simple. All of Joe’s skulls had been destroyed: broken, melted, and erased. Only the big one carved in the stone remained, but time and Dag’s plants would soon take care of that one. Now, they needed a replacement that would inspire people, not intimidate them. Toast had suggested it that evening, when they gathered at the dome Vault, now their Council room, to discuss the day’s happenings. It was going fine until Cheedo jumped to the occasion, collecting paper and charcoals, apparently eager to show her hidden drawing talents. The result was a pitiful demonstration of the girl’s actual inability to design anything, making the room burst with amusement.

“If it’s not a bolt cutter, then what is it supposed to be?” Dag asks, between giggles. Even Cura and Griep, who have shown very little patience towards the Sister’s girly displays, laugh at their expanse.

“Clasped hands! These are clasped hands, like when Max and Furiosa did it in the Salts, before we came back”.

Cheedo reaches for Toast, sitting next to her, and clasps her right hand with the other girl’s right hand.

“Like this!” she demonstrates.

It is more the motion, as innocent and fond as it is, than the mention of the memory that inspired it that curdles Furiosa’s mood. Her _body_ remembers it, making her hand tingle. She tears her eyes from the girls, focusing on the mug in her hand containing the mildly bitter tea Dag made for her to taste today.

“The arms are too slim and the fingers are a bit messy” Toast gives her diagnosis, filling the awkward silence among them. “But the idea is quite good. People will have to help each other to make the gesture”.

Furiosa raises from her seat while Toasts takes the paper and charcoal from Cheedo’s hands and starts to draw. The others, Sisters, former Milk Mothers, some women from the people below, gather closer to them and pay little attention to her retreating form.

She takes a seat at the upper stairs of the Vault. During her time as a wife, there was no glass dome, only gridded windows that made her feel even more like a prisoner. The moon is high on the sky now, full and bright, flashing the desert with a blueish glow that gives the dunes the appearance of ghostly creatures. The stars tell her she is facing North and it somehow is not as soothing as it is to stare far East.

There is an anger building up inside her that she fights with all her might. Anger should not be the feeling memories of Max bring to her. If anything, she owes the man complete and utter gratitude. Furiosa is alive, brought back by his hands and his blood. The Citadel is free, rid of the rot that was Immortan Joe, his fall only possible due to Max’s aid. Really, nothing but gratitude.

That is the rational part of her thinking. There is a different part of her, though, one that usually does not have much of a voice, but that has been screaming with pain lately. The pain of abandon, of broken vows.

_We might be able to… together… come across some kind of redemption._

Together. Together. The word makes fun of her. What the hell was he thinking, making promises he was not planning on keeping? Why save her just to leave her behind? Why? Why? _Why_?

It is stupid. So, so bloody stupid of her to give room to such naïvely unfair thoughts, allow them to blurry her mind. So not like her. Yet, there is this feeling inside her chest that constricts her heart to the point she thinks she will not be able to breathe. Every morning, after his face shows up in her dreams behind a framed mirror, she feels it. Angharad tells her to understand, but she doesn’t. And perhaps she would, if only he was here with her to explain. His face in her dreams has become another reminder of her loneliness.

Furiosa thinks, in the end, that is the reason for her anger. For most part of her life, she was alone. Faced unnamed hardships with defiance and unswerving strength, with no one to count on but herself. Still, she never really felt alone. It was this man literally barging his way through her life that brought awareness to her own heartache. He had filled parts of her that had been lying dormant and forgotten for so long, she does not know what they are anymore. Now, alone – because she _is_ alone, no matter how much she surrounds herself with people –, she feels hopeless, weak, and it only serves to foster her anger.

“Do you miss him?”

So caught up in her own self-pity, Furiosa does not hear Capable approaching.

The question should surprise her, but it doesn’t. It surprises her they haven’t asked earlier. It also seems plausible that it would be Capable to gather up the courage to come to her and ask it.

She stares at her tea, gone cold now, and bitterer. She will have to tell Dag this is not a good herb mix for teas.

Capable sits next to her on the stairs, their shoulders touching.

“Do you think he will come back?”

Furiosa wonders how long it will take for her silence to scare the girl away.

It’s not like she is doing it on purpose. The answers to those questions are just too complex to voice. By saying them aloud, the pain of his absence will cease to be something restrained to the confines of her heart. It will turn into something far more real, tangible even. She does not think she can withstand it.

“I think he will” the girl says, “He loves you, after all”.

And that does it. The air leaves her chest as it would if someone had kicked her right in the solar plexus. Her hand shakes, and she uses her metal one to hide it, putting the tea mug aside.

“Don’t say that” her tone is deadpan.

“It’s true” she rebuffs.

“Capable...”

“It’s true!”

“ _Capable_.”

The young woman continues, unfazed.

“He helped you, saved you when you were all but gone. He gave you his blood _and_ his name. He guarded your sleep. He went after you and stayed with you until you were safe”.

“And then he _left_.”

She can hear the bitterness in her voice, the injustice. She hates herself as much as she hates him right now.

“He _will_ come back.”

Furiosa tries to ignore the feeling of hope that comes along with the girl’s words. She is mostly fed up with hope by now. There are giggles coming from where the others are gathered, the sound catching her attention. Toast is holding court with her drawings; they all seem to ignore the heated exchange between herself and Capable. It amazes her: in her mind, they were almost screaming.

Her heart feels like a caged wild bird in her chest, flapping its wings against her ribcage, desperately wanting freedom. She berates herself for letting a simple sentence cause such havoc in her being. It is just so typical Capable, foolish as much as it is innocent, to think that whatever bond Max and Furiosa had formed is anything akin to love. They are Road Warriors, survivors above all else. They had been forged by fire, drenched in blood and war, and are now left broken. Love cannot survive in such inhospitable circumstances.

They did, however, build complete and mutual trust in the space of half a dozen exchanged words. And trust is such a precious commodity these days.

She sighs, tries to bring back order to the chaos in her head. Capable sits unmoving next to her. Their shoulders, hips and knees touching, warmth radiating from the girl and heating Furiosa’s icy skin.

“What do you mean, he guarded my sleep?” this one being the only remark she had difficulty placing in her memory.

Capable’s brows furrow before she answers.

“That night in the desert. After you decided to go across The Salt. You invited him, but he would not join us. You retreated to the rig and you cried yourself to sleep. I was awake, I heard you. The others did, too. We all probably thought about reaching to you, joining you. But Max sat at your door, sent threatening glances to anyone approaching. Even the Vuvalini. He neither slept nor left your side until dawn”.

Furiosa’s eyes widen a bit. She avoids blinking; otherwise the tears behind them might fall.

“You didn’t know?”

No, she didn’t.

“If that’s not love, it’s a lot like it.”

Suddenly, is too stifling for her. The room, the people, the words. The straps of her mechanic arm, normally reassuring and safe, now crush her ribcage like claws. She needs fresh air, needs to run away from this pang in her heart that makes so difficult to breathe.

“Furiosa!” Toast intercepts her midway to the door, lilting and smiling. “I made this for you”.

Toast, it seems, is quite the artist, and has been making portraits for them. She hands Furiosa a torn piece of paper and in it, is Max. Max, as she sees him in her dreams, leaning on a car and looking sideways with not a care in the world. The delicate contours of his eyes and lips are extremely accurate, as if at any moment, he would turn and smile a half smile she had only seen once. She should congratulate Toast on her art, but she cannot.

She has blacked out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Featuring a line from the movie "A Lot Like Love".


	8. Chapter 8

He doesn’t run into much success at first.

 

Max’s journey back to the Fury Road takes longer than his immersive trip to the far Western Salts. He stops more often than he needs, lingering longer on the settlements. Last time, he tried to keep away from people as much as he could. Now, he searches them, forces himself to engage in real conversation.

“There’s a place.”

“It has green, water.”

“Yeah, it’s peaceful.”

“The Citadel, yeah.”

“No, Immortan Joe’s dead.”

The talking leaves him tired to his bones. Not just the talking per se, but the part where he had to sound convincing. Persuasion had never really been his forte. It’s so much easier to talk to a voice in his head than to other human beings. In most cases, people are wary of him, the half-feral wanderer that never stops fidgeting and talks to himself. The way they look at him sometimes, as if he might bite if approached too hastily, is enough to make him want to sprint. Mostly, he refrains from offering anything else besides his grumbled words. He thinks they wouldn’t accept it anyway. Perhaps the ideas of green he sows on those people’s minds will be enough to bloom and give fruits.

In some places, though, he doesn’t have to say much. The news had traveled already. And far.

The remnants of a Town, half cover in sand, comes into view as the electricity of a sandstorm starts prickling down his neck. He drives there, finding an old hangar with its door ripped apart. Max can see the people inside it – two women, a child and a man, he would guess –, cornered in the back. He makes sure to signal he means them no harm as he leaves the car.

“Just here for shelter” he says, loudly, with his arms raised. He cannot say if they are pointing any guns at him. His gun is tucked in the back of his jacket where he can easily reach it, just in case, though.

The women eye him suspiciously. So does the man. It is the child, a small, dark skinned and dark eyed girl that tugs gently on his pants and urges him closer.

“There’s a storm coming, mister.”

“Mm” and he joins them.

It’s dark in there, smelling of rust and mold. Max sits with his back pressed to the wall, positioning himself so he can see every shadow and easily bolt back to his car. The girl sits between him and the other three. They don’t seem really young, and the man doesn’t have a leg, for what Max can see. The howls and whistles of the storm fill the silence, the wind relentlessly bangs on the metal walls.

“How far are we?” one of them asks.

“Dunno. Though we’d be there by now” another answers.

“You said it was a five days walk West.”

“Maybe it’s ten.”

Their voices are muffled by the havoc outside, but he can hear them. Knows where they are heading.

Noticing his interest, the little one clarifies to him.

“We are going to the Green Place.”

_We are going to the Green Place._

The voice of the lost Wife murmurs into his ear. The sound of three shots soon follow.

_We are going to the Green Place of Many Mothers._

He can see her grip slipping from the rig. He can see her fall, going under the wheels. It’s a lie, but she is dead, and her baby is dead and it’s his fault. It’s all his fault.

_Who killed the world, Max?_

Max’s whole body shakes and he is ready to reach for his gun when Furiosa speaks to him.

_“Shh, Fool, shh.”_

Max cradles his head in his hands for an unspecific amount of time. He can feel the little girl’s eyes on him. The storm outside has reached its maximum, the wind swirls violently inside the hangar, but not enough to harm them.

_“Deep breaths, now. You will be alright.”_

He does breathe, in and out, deep and slow. There is a light touch on his arm and the little girl is there, looking at him. The feeble weight of her hand grounding somehow.

“You will be alright, mister” she says, and for a moment he is not sure if she is real. “It’s almost over.”

“Dilly, come here!” one of the women calls and the girl skitters to her side hurriedly.

She is right, though. In a few moments, the blowing of the wind slows down and the noises outside seem to allay.

When it’s quiet long enough, Max feels the tension leaving his muscles and thinks he can move again.

The others hadn’t move. They are gathered around one another, looking at him leerily. Only the girl smiles quizzically at him.

“Your Green Place is a seven days ride Northwest” he tells them, getting up. He is not at all surprised he knew exactly how far from The Citadel they were, even if he had not consciously been keeping tabs.

“You’ve been there?” the man asks.

“Mm.”

“You don’t seem too right in the head” the woman, the other one, says wisely. “You sure you’ve been there?”

Max ignores it and proceeds with arrangements that are more practical.

“You got a ride?”

“Stolen three days ago” the man answers again.

_“You can give them hope, Fool”_ Furiosa reminds him.

“Yeah, yeah.”

“What?” the man asks.

“Nothing” he didn’t realize he had said it out loud. “’m headed that way. You can hop on”.

“And how much is that gonna cost us?” the skeptical woman asks promptly.

Max sights.

“Look, you can stay or you can come. ‘m just offerin’.”

They look at each other, trading whispers. He cocks his hip to the right, taking the weight from his bad knee. Shoves his hands in his pants’ pockets and waits patiently for their decision.

“We are keepin’ our guns” and it serves as both a final answer and a warning.

“Fine by me” he is keeping his.

The women and the girl cramp themselves in the back seat. This is not a big car, not built to transport many people, but there are no complaints. The man seats himself on the passenger seat and Max gets to look at him, really look at him, for the first time. How skin and bones he is, and dirty. Before Furiosa can say something, he reaches under his seat and takes a canteen with water, passing to the gaunt man.

“Thank you” he says, lowly.

Max grunts, the engine revs and he drives.

 

When he knows they are a two days walk from The Citadel, he stops.

“You can continue by foot, now” he says “It’s friendly territory and they will welcome you there when you arrive.” The three Towers are visible not far on the horizon.

“You said you were going there yourself” the woman says, surprised.

“Said I was headin’ that way. ‘s different” his patience is running thin. “’m going a different way, now.”

He cannot go any further. It would be better to drive these people to The Citadel, see them up the lift, but he cannot. He is not ready yet.

They leave the car and Max hands them a jug with more water and a piece of a foul bread he managed to trade before meeting them. They accept it with a bit of shock. Kindness is such a rare thing on these parts of the world.

“What is your name, mister?” Dilly, the little girl who had spent most of the trip silently smiling, asks.

“Doesn’t matter” is his taciturn answer.

“It always matters.”

He waits a moment, turns on the car and before he leaves, says:

“Fool. That's my name.”

 

***

 

It all happens because of the fucking cat.

And Furiosa. The cat and Furiosa.

He is not so sure they are two different things by now.

Max decides to head North, circling Bullet Farm at a fair distance. He assumes supply runs to Gas Town would happen more often, guzzoline more crucial than bullets, if only by an inch. He is not ready to run into a Citadel convoy just yet. It’s easier this way, saves him some fuel by not going up and down the mountains at the same time it avoids The Sunken City, Buzzard territory and vivid memories of Glory. His car could use some repairs and, if his memory still serves him any good, he is almost sure there is a collection of grottos there somewhere, hidden and far enough for him to stop for a night or two.

He is right, and after driving through the night, he sees the rocky structure appear in front of him with the first morning sunrays.

The entrance to the den is narrow and Max kills the engine before proceeding. This place is a labyrinth of intertwined tunnels, not so big one could get lost, but enough to conceal a few hiding spots here and there. Any louder sounds would echo deep within the rocks, denouncing his presence, and Max wants anything but. He gets out of the car and pushes it all the way in, away from outsiders view, though not so far in that a quick reverse gear wouldn’t get him out of there in a split second.

Max sits back on the driver’s seat and waits a good half hour before convincing himself it is safe enough to go under the chassis and start working. Distrusting the silence was a lesson he’d learned the hard way.

His tools are scarce, rusty leftovers like the car itself, but they will do. _Work dignifies the man_ , Max thinks at the back of his head, his own voice speaking for a change. It is good to have something to do with his hands, put his brain to work to fix what can be easily fixed. He hums along the low and repetitive clang clang clang of metal, and only has his attention deviated because he can feel a strong gaze burning on his right.

Max sees a pair of fiery green eyes and for a second too long, thinks it’s Furiosa.

The vertical pupils and the hiss the desert cat gives him before sprinting into the cave ends his illusion.

He is out from under the car and following the cat in no time. The diversion annoys him more than it should. That shade of green belongs to another pair of eyes; it makes him uncomfortable to see it anywhere else other than in his dreams.

It is not completely dark, the ceiling of the grotto is sparingly open, creating beams of shivery light bright enough to illuminate his path. The cat moves graciously, stopping ahead of him, sitting on its quarters and darting again before he gets too close. Its fur is the color of the desert sand, fluff and soft in appearance. The pointy ears are big, and there are two black dashes on either of its forelegs. Max would take it to be a pup if he hadn’t seen desert cats before, known they are naturally small.

He turns to find the cat atop of a small rock, and before they repeat the routine of stop-run-chase, Furiosa’s voice comes to him.

_“You should leave the cat alone.”_

“Should eat the damn thing for breakfast” the idea not at all displeasing to his two days empty stomach.

_“You have more import issues at hand.”_

As the cat jumps from its spot and runs again, the motion makes the rock moves. Not a rock, after all, but a pursuit bike, covered in a gray blanket the dim light of the alcove has concealed.

To say he is surprised would be an understatement.

This vehicle had not been abandoned, but placed. Wherever its owner is, shouldn’t be too far. There is movement to his left and it’s the cat, the fucking cat staring at him, that distracts him enough. And whatever survival instincts Max has kicks in a moment too late. When he turns to head back to his car, it is to face the barrel end of a gun.

“Careful now, mate” his attacker warns in a raspy voice.

Max shows his hands in submission. He cannot reach for his own gun, he cannot _move_ without risking getting shot. He tries to see beyond the rifle pointed at him. The man is taller than he is, but slimmer and paler. His clothes are a mixture of rags and old army suits from no particular clan. A marauder’s garb, no real identity to it. His skin has the grayish glow of sickness and there is sweat sprouting from his brows. He is young and breathless, but his grip on the gun is firm.

“Shudder sent you?” he asks, keeping his stance.

Who the hell is Shudder?

_“Play along”_ Furiosa orders. The seriousness in her sharp tone leaves no room for doubt. This is an order and, as usual, he does her bidding.

“Mm” Max grunts as an answer, and it seems enough, because the other man lowers his weapon and heads for the bike.

“You’re late” he sounds annoyed. Max lowers his hands, mimicking the other man’s actions. He moves slowly, places one hand on the belt buckles of his pants, a seemingly casual motion that keeps his hand close to his gun holster.

“You were supposed to be here yesterday” he supports the rifle on the side of the bike.

Yeah, was he?

“Mm”

Max is flabbergasted. What are the odds of such thing happen? He was should be tending his car, should be scavenging for parts in the outskirts of Bullet Farm before heading deeper into the desert. Or he should be _dead_. An encounter like that could not end any other way.

“Hey! Do you speak at all, or are you fucking retarded?”

_“Play along”_ she reminds him.

“Got, hum, sidetracked.” He shifts from one foot to another so uncomfortably he is sure his companion will know there is something off.

“Sure. Look, I’ve been to the city yesterday” the boy – because he could not be older than Joe’s War Boys –, points in the direction of Bullet Farm with his chin and continues. “People there ain’t know shit. Not the common people anyway. And the ones that could actually know something are too busy fucking around to share.”

Max waits as long as he can until the other one raises his eyes at him, expectantly.

“So…” he trails off.

“So is no use, dipshit! We’ll have to go to The Citadel and learn about the bitch ourselves.”

The thing about clarity, Max will think later, is that it is the same as an ice cold shower. He only remembers vaguely of those, another memory buried so deep within his subconscious it is now wrapped in dream tissue. But just as the cold water, clarity hits you without warning and burns your skin. Most importantly, though, clarity gives you purpose. It washes away the cranks in your joints and makes you react.

So he does.

There is a menace is his stance as he approaches the boy that was not there a moment ago. His fist clenches once, forming a ball at the side of his gun.

“Will we, now?” he asks, and when did his voice become so low?

“Hum, yeah” the boy looks at him suspiciously for two seconds, clear his throat and then continues. “The cars and the guns stay. They are more likely to welcome strollers anyway. Best to leave them.”

He is young. Max had noticed before, but now he really sees it. Reminds him of his time in the force, of the rookies there. How they would never stop talking, eager to prove themselves, waving their dicks screaming for violence.

“And once we get there?”

“What the fuck is wrong with you, mate? What kind of mercenary are you? We do what we were fucking paid to do! We go there, we see what she’s done with the place and we go back to report.”

“Mm. And Shudder?”

The boy sights, even more annoyed.

“What about him? He’s waiting. He ain’t gonna do shit unless we tell him the one-armed cunt ain’t got no defenses. No one is. He ain’t gonna waste men and fuel going there just to clash against her walls. I hear she’s got Joe’s old Boys working for her now. That’s one smart bitch, if you ask me.”

But Max hasn’t.

He is calm. Dead calm. There is no more fidgeting or shifting. Only purpose.

The air is thick with a sudden tension one could cut with a blade. The boy senses it too, and narrows his eyes, looking suspiciously at Max, before asking:

“What’d you say your name was again?”

The shot that follows is clear, precise. The loud bang resounds through the wall and up the opening in the ceiling, reaching the skies. He can hear the fluttering of wings, the birds outside scarily taking off.

Then, there is silence.

The gun is still warm in Max’s hand, his arm is still outstretched, having barely moved with the kick. The boy’s body fell on its back, his eyes forever open in that last surprise. The new hole in his forehead gushes red blood.

There are no ghosts this time. This death didn’t bring any voices or guilt. This one felt good. Max knows he is not a good person, nothing more than a murderer, unworthy and empty. None of his good deeds will ever be enough to atone for his sins. But since he is already damned to hell, he might as well do something right along the way. And this he can do, have Furiosa and her Green Place as his new religion and spare them from the evil of men. He can use the violence coiled within him for something other than survival.

Is this the best he can be? His better self?

_“No”_ Furiosa answers.

But it will have to do for now.

He pillages the bike, jumping across the body unceremoniously. There are some unexpected treasures there: a couple of leather jugs of water, knives, a piece of dried meat and even a map. Max moves everything to his car, his movements coldly meticulous. He comes back with a small gallon to transfer the guzzoline, and then moves the bike to a further, hidden corner in the cave, covering it back with the blanket. He makes a mental note to mark this place on his expanding map in case he needs a spare vehicle.

The body he drops in a pit behind a rock, not bothering to cover the trace of blood it left on the ground while he dragged it.

When the goods and his previously scattered tools are back in the car, he gears the reverse and drives away from the grotto, but doesn’t go really far. Just enough to hide the car behind another series of rocks, a bit west from where he was. Max sits himself on a higher rock, the boy’s rifle in his hand, points to the entrance of the grotto and waits. And waits.

The sun is vanishing far on the horizon when a shadow approaches the cave. The other mercenary. The man is on foot, and Max cannot believe his luck. He lays down on the rock, supporting the rifle, looks through the lens and aims.

_“Don’t breathe.”_

He doesn’t.

The shot is perfect, and his victim falls to the ground, motionless. He regrets for a moment the speed in which he killed them, regrets not having made the boy swallow every nasty name he called her before he finally begged for death.

There will be others, he knows. And he will be there for them.

Waiting.

As he returns to the car, he sees the cat. It sits atop of his hood, the green in its eyes flickering like the evening stars as it stares at him.

It couldn’t be the same one. It couldn’t. Max takes one step forward and the feline darts again.

_“Leave the cat alone”_ Furiosa says before he follows it.

If it wasn’t for the cat, none of this would have happened. If it wasn’t for the fucking cat, he could be dead and there would be an army heading for The Citadel in the very near future.

Max leaves the cat alone and drives away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay! I would rather spend my days writing than doing science, but real life won’t allow me.  
> I predict it will be another three chapters before our heroes meet for real. Thanks for reading! You are all amazing!


	9. Chapter 9

She hears the first concrete news about him on the hundredth-eighteenth day after the Revolution.

 

“There’s something I need to show you.”

Toast asks her, almost cautiously. Since Furiosa’s fainting spell, the girl has been more careful in her approaches, tiptoeing a bit before starting any real conversation. They blamed the far away episode on Dag’s tea and the excessive heat of the desert summer, but she is sure the excuse sounded as lame to them as it did to her.

Furiosa is at the bottom of the South Tower, overseeing the work on the second water pump. She signals Luk, an older Boy, to take her place and follows Toast.

“To the gardens” she directs a child Boy.

The climb up is silent, and she takes a moment to observe how Toast fell into the role of Imperator with much more grace than she herself did. Her hair has grown again, and although she still paints her forehead black, she portrays a completely different picture. Furiosa’s rise to the role was a violent statement, a fierce challenge to the authority of the man that had subjugated her for so long; Toast’s was a calling: she was meant for it.

“Should I be worried?” she asks.

“I hope not.”

They reach the top floor and the girl directs her to the watchtower, handing her a pair of binoculars and pointing North.

The early morning sun makes it difficult for her to adjust to its brightness. When she does, what she sees is the risen sand on the track of two vehicles, maybe bikes, far away on the horizon, moving further from The Citadel.

“The Watchers warned me that they saw two men leaving during the night, heading in that direction”.

Furiosa ponders for a moment. “I don’t see the problem”. People had been arriving at The Citadel for a while now, enchanted by the promise it withheld. If these men did not like their offer of water and food that came in exchange for the work it would suit both them and the city, it was their lost.

“They left on foot.”

She cannot say the idea the rival tribes would send spies to pry on them had not crossed her mind. As she watches the hazily figures almost vanish in the distance, she wonders how many others escaped the scrutiny of their guards. How many hid their bikes in the sand, mingled with the common people until they had gathered enough intel for their masters and sneaked out on them during the night.

“Am I overreacting?” Toast’s question is almost rhetorical.

“No” she answers anyway.

“Should we send a patrol after them?”

“And who are we going to send? You send men on a wild-goose chase in the wastes and they don’t come back. We don’t have this luxury” Toast nods and Furiosa chews on her lips, thinking. “Are we keeping any tracks on the newcomers?”

“To some extent. I think we can track down the ones that arrived in the last month or so.”

“Bring them to the Vault”.

Dusk had tinted the sky red by the time Toast was back. She was followed by a few of the Boys assigned to accompany her and a small flock of people, huddled close together and slightly frightened.

Griep is sitting by Furiosa’s side, a small budge and a makeshift pencil in one hand, her rifle in the other.

Toast ushers a couple through the door and they greet Furiosa.

“Imperator” the man says. He proffers his right hand and Furiosa takes it in her own, her grip firm.

“And you are?”

“I’m Warrin. This is Tarlee” he points to the woman at his side. They are both pale skinned, Warrin’s maze of hair is black and thick, while Tarlee’s is the color of the desert sand.

“Where do you work here in The Citadel?”

“I help Sister Cheedo in the infirmary” Furiosa has a small recollection of seeing this woman once or twice while she walked through the hallways of the East Tower.

“I’m working with the masons down below.”

She nods to him, and signals to Toast to let the next ones in.

There are about twenty people in the Vault when the introductions are done. Furiosa hopes the greeting would easy a bit of the tension, but she makes sure there are armed Boys in the room and guarding the entrance.

“We need some information on you, for the records of the city” she starts. She does not want to scare these people; and she has always been terrible at lying. In a way, it is true that some recording of the comings and goings of the inhabitants within The Citadel would do no harm. These people do not need to know the real reason why it was decided to start now. She keeps her voice in a gentle and soft tone. “Where’ve you come from, how’ve you got here? We just need some details on your journey.”

There is a bit of fidgeting, a bit of murmur, before the first one speaks.

“I… I come from the South” a woman, holding the hand of toddler, starts. “Small village, way beyond Gas Town. We heard the stories of a city ruled by Mothers, where water sprouted from the ground and there was food and peace” she picks her son from the ground and looks at him “I lost my husband and my eldest to the night fever. Two moons ago, I decided to leave and try my luck on the desert. It was not worse than what I had back there”.

“It took you thirty days to get here?” Griep asks.

“More or less. We walked most of the way”.

“Most?”

“Yes. We walked for twenty one days. We were met by a man when we were crossing the mountains. He had a car and offered to help”.

The hairs on Furiosa’s arms rise up as she feels goosebumps under her skin.

“He didn’t say much, but he spoke of you, said you would welcome us”.

Her knees feel wobbly and Furiosa has to put a hand on the back of Griep’s chair to steady herself.

“This… man,” she starts, finding it hard to speak with a cold shiver running down her spine “did he tell you his name?”

The woman smiles a bit before answering.

“He said to say, if anyone asked, that a Fool helped us.”

By the end of the interrogation, fifteen of the twenty people gathered in the Vault came to The Citadel on their own. The others were aided by Max.

Furiosa feels feverish. There is cold sweat on her brows and she is pacing the room without even noticing. The rest of the Sisters had come back from their daily duties and, after being informed, wanted in on the subject.

“We should go after him” Capable says, glaring at Furiosa defiantly. She had been doing that a lot, lately.

“Don’t be silly, Capable” Toast says, while Furiosa does everything in her power not to jump and strangle the red headed girl.

“Why not? He is so close!”

“If he wanted to be found, he would’ve come to us. He knows he’s welcomed here.”

“Does he?”

_Does he, indeed?_

All the stories those people told about Max had one thing in common. He never drove them beyond a two days walk to The Citadel. They had come from different regions, different tribes, met him in different places along their journeys, but he never crossed this invisible boundary.

It could mean one of two things. Either he really thought he was unwelcomed in her domain and preferred to keep his distance – a though that stung far more than it should – or he was busy with something else. And, if he spent the last hundred and plus days driving in circles around her, he must have met more than just those people in need in the desert. Maybe the spies had kept him busy as well.

When clarity reaches her, it must feel the same as being hit by lightening.

He was guarding them.

_He guarded your sleep. Sat at your door, sent threatening glances to anyone approaching._

There is a feeling growing in her chest, but Furiosa will not name it. Will not even give it any notice. She suddenly feels stronger than she had the past days. Months, even. Her senses are sharper and she has this deep need for action.

“Get me Ace” she commands to a Boy, that leaves hurriedly.

“Are you going after him?” is Cheedo who asks.

“I will do no such thing.”

“Furiosa-”

“We have more urgent matters at hand, Capable” it is easy to say because it is the truth.

If Max was helping her keep the peace in her new Green Place, the least she could do was to give him a hand.

“Boss…” Ace limps his way into the room, his right leg still giving him a bit of trouble, and extends his right hand to her. She grabs it with gusto.

“I need you to gather a team to ride four vehicles. They will leave at dawn, each car in one direction. They will drive for a whole day and stop, keeping an eye on the horizon. Anyone that moves towards the city, anyone at all, either by foot or on wheels, will be escorted straight to one of us. No one enters _or_ leaves The Citadel that we don’t know of, understand?”

“Yes, Boss.”

“Assemble a spare team as well. They should be replaced every three days.”

“Sure. Should I recruit some of the Repair Boys? Or some from the plumbing?” Ace asks.

“No, I want the War Rigs ready before the moon changes” she considers for a moment before answering “We slow down the work on the new pump for now. The garage and the installation of the plumbing stays the same”.

“As you say, Boss” he nods once and leaves.

“You are making them drive only one day away from here? That’s not enough to meet him” Dag says.

“Not the point. The point is not to let the spooks in or out of here”.

“I still can’t believe you won’t go after him.” Capable passes by her, stating indignantly.

She will not. She doesn’t have to. That night, when she sits on her window curb and stares at the starlit desert, she does not feel alone at all.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little trip down Memory Lane for Furiosa. Won't be pretty, but I hope to bring some closure. Tags have been updated.

There is something wrong with Dag’s pregnancy.

Furiosa knows it when, midway through her term, she is twice as big as she should be. Still, it takes her weeks before she does something about it.

She goes in search of Cura at the top of the North Tower. Both the remaining Vuvalini women disliked the idea of being confined by stone walls, and had denied the option of having quarters of their own within The Citadel. They preferred the outdoors, and Furiosa made sure to have the wooden shack by the Watchers’ Tower fully equipped for them. She and the older woman now walk through the gardens, while Griep marches down for breakfast. It’s still pretty early in the morning, but the workers are already busy harvesting the delicate berries from their bushes before the blazing midday sun withers them down. It is the first crop of the Keeper’s seeds, the first ones to give fruits. The air is fragrant with their sweetness and it reminds Furiosa of waking up before dawn with Valkyrie, eating as many blueberries as they could before being discovered. They would have tommy aches, fingers and teeth tainted purple and smiles on their faces. It also reminds Furiosa why she had been avoiding the gardens.

The Green Place was gone and this was just a place to give life to memories.

“Girl spent fifty days retching her guts out every morning after we came back. A few days would be okay, but that was not normal” Cura tells her, after Fusiosa explains her suspicions.

She feels bad for not knowing. Guilty. She knows she had been detaching herself from Dag for months now, but had felt helpless as she saw it happening. It was a defense mechanism. The growing belly of the girl was a constant reminder of too many painful things from before. Of _that_. And Furiosa could handle a lot of things, could handle the pressure of leadership, the unforgiven weigh of responsibility on her shoulders, the unjustified and completely undeserving adoration people bestowed upon her.

She could not handle _that_. Not now and maybe never. Had been avoiding it for almost seven thousands days.

Still, Furiosa feels like a coward, mortified that she had missed one of the girls’ suffering in favor of her own peace of mind. Selfishness was a fault she’d considered herself rid of, but that now she sees as a treacherous weed that took root within her.

She sights, and continues to the older woman.

“What do you think it is, then?” Furiosa lowers herself, catches a dark green leaf between her fingers before resuming her walk.

“She’s carrying two kids in that bundle.”

It makes sense. Furiosa had known it was possible, but had never seen it for herself, not even in the Green Place.

“Is there any extra risk?”

“It sure won’t be easy” the older woman says. “She’s strong and is well fed now, but when the time comes, it’ll be tricky” Cura waits a little, examines a low bush with yellow flowers before adding “Might lose them.”

The world had not gotten any less cruel because Furiosa had rid it from Joe. Being a woman was still a menace in itself; giving birth, even if by choice, could still be a death sentence.

It makes her wonder if she had made a difference at all.

She presses the leaf between her thumb and forefinger until it becomes mush.

“Did she… try to…” Furiosa trails of, not brave enough to finish the sentence.

“No” Cura clarifies, understanding. “I offered it when there was still time. Told her that a good strong tea with these ones,” and she points to the plant with the yellow flowers she was just examining “a bit of a painful cramp and it would all be over. She declined.”

Images of Angharad flood her mind. How she turned from a scared and tame little creature, cowardly trying to kill the unwanted life inside of her, to a lioness fighting to save her offspring. She had never been more defiant, more dangerous than when she’d dared to love her baby.

Angharad was dead, though, just a shadow haunting her dreams. And Dag could be fallowing the same path.

That evening, Furiosa looks for the pale Sister. The Council was not gathered, so Furiosa traces the path to a place she had not visited since forever.

Joe’s old quarters.

During her time as a wife, the Vault was a room not much better than the dormitories where the War Boys lived. Joe would take his fillies into his room to have his way, and then would have them returned to their cell. The Sister had it different, though. Only Cheedo had been in there and, apparently, without much of a trauma. Thus, upon returning and realizing they had never slept alone before, nor had the wish to do so, they’d adopted the old man’s alcove as their own. One last act of affront to him. The place was big enough, and Furiosa had heard of the modifications they’d made, but never bothered to check. The aversion they had for the Vault was the same Furiosa had for Joe’s quarters. The Sister, however, had been a lot faster than she had in facing their fears.

She walks through one of the greenhouses, the clean and fresher air calming her nerves somehow. She was usually dragged while making this route, screaming and biting and always, always fighting.

The double doors to the room are open, light emanating from the inside. Taking a deep breath, she goes in.

It’s a lot brighter than Furiosa remembered. Smells different, too. Old parchment, dried flowers but also something green. The rows of records are still there, but there are clay vases hanging from them. There are vases everywhere, now that the notices. And lamps. The big four-poster bed is gone, instead replaced by four small beds, probably remnants from the Vault, with their headboards pushed against the wall and facing the windows. The windows, bigger than in any other room within The Citadel, no longer have grids on them, only curtains made of thin, translucent white muslin dotted with dried flowers.

Toast and Dag are there. Toast has a book open in her lap, a toothpick on her lips and nods to Furiosa as she stands by the door. Dag is on the opposite side of the room, sat cross-legged on her bed and arranging red flowers on yet another vase. She smiles when she sees her and offers her flowery arrangement for her to inspect.

“These are roses” she explains. “Sweet, despite the thorns. If we keep them long enough, soon there will be bees in the gardens.”

But Furiosa is no longer paying attention. She has seen, really seen, the walls now.

There are words everywhere, written in white chalk with different handwritings. _Beware, for I am fearless, and therefore powerful_ , on top of Toast’s bed. _And now that you don’t have to be perfect, you can be good_ , on top of what she thinks is Cheedo’s, given the different gauze bundles standing by it. Next to that one is Capable’s, for sure, gear parts and tools stashed under it, and with _What is essential is invisible to the eye_ scribbled in girly, round letters on top. And behind Dag, Furiosa can see curvy, capital thin letters and flowers drawn around a warning: _We are all mad here_.

If this whole situation, this whole _day_ , had not been enough to painfully remind Furiosa of her mother, the words had done the job. Mary Jobassa was the keenest of readers, a history woman in the making among the Vuvalini. Her old bungalow in the Green Place had always been crowded with books, salvaged from the old world, treated as treasures. When Furiosa had shown more interest in bikes and shotguns, instead of admonishing her, her mother had instead given her courage in the form of words. “Because words have power”, Mary would say. Furiosa remembers nights under the starry sky, her mother’s fingers untangling the knots from her long hair after a wild ride on her bike and reciting low in her ears:

_Do not go gentle into that good night._

_Rage, rage against the dying of the light._

“Furiosa?”

Dag’s voice pierces through the memory and brings Furiosa back to the present. She breathes through her nose, slowly, until she trusts her voice to be even.

“Would you come for the Watch with me tonight?”

It’s a shallow request, a lame excuse. The Sisters hardly seat on watches these days; only Toast does it, and just because, sometimes, she gets restless with all the talking and enjoys the silence atop of the Towers. And Furiosa herself never does it, too busy with all the fuss around The Citadel.

Dag stares at her for a few seconds, at the rifle she bares in her hands, clearly deciding whether to comment on the fact or not. She ends up smiling and nodding, moving her legs from under her and raising herself with just a tiny bit of struggle. Toast gives her a knowing, silent look and Furiosa is suddenly glad that Capable and Cheedo are gone. Cheedo had been highly overprotective of Dag as of lately, and would not let this pass without protest. And Capable, as adorable as she was, would turn into her infuriating self if she though there was something more to this.

Furiosa grabs two blankets on the way out from a pile in a corner. Before she exits the room, she notices more words circling the door dome: _Be true, be brave, stand. All the rest is darkness_. She remembers those, read them herself in a long distant past. She now regrets more than anything having come here.

Dag follows, her long legs make up for her slower pace and they walk side by side. Her hand rest on her swollen stomach, perhaps without even noticing, but she does not say a word as they climb stairs that are too steep for her and come out in the cold air she should be avoiding.

Furiosa guides her to the opposite direction of Cura and Griep’s stall, the opposite direction of the Watchers’ Tower. They can hear movement on their backs, probably changing of the sentries. Furiosa marches closer to where a small bonfire is burning, the ever lit flames a beacon for those searching for The Citadel in the dark desert. Dag says not a word. Furiosa sits, her back against the wall and as Dag follows, she handles her a blanket. The bigger one. The girl drapes is across her shoulders like a cape, shuddering a little.

As she adjusts her own blanket and accommodates the rifle in her hand, Furiosa thinks of how to start this, realizing she does not know exactly what to say to the younger woman.

Dag beats her to it, though.

“Are you going to kill us?”

Furiosa turns, terror overtaking her, and looks at Dag. She sees nothing but dead calm, a cold peacefulness. Surprise doesn’t even begin to describe what she feels. The absurdity of the question baffles her, but the fact that this possibility was even considered, and most importantly, that there is no reaction from the girl completely shocks her. Dag is not frightened, nor tense. She looks… resigned.

“Dag, I would never-”

“You hate us.”

A deadpan tone. Blue eyes turned crystal. Ethereal features under the shadows cast by the fire. Calmness.

Furiosa feels like screaming.

“I would never…” and she stops, because she was going to say she would never hurt them, but then she remembers Angharad, sad and angry, hurting herself and her child. Remembers her almost violent reaction, borne completely out of her own grief and masked with a speech of undeserving privileges. “I don’t hate you. Not at all” she finally manages.

“You can barely look at us” the gaze Dag directs at her is almost cruel in its passiveness.

It is the truth, though. Furiosa cannot deny it and it hurts her greatly.

“To see you hurt is the last thing I want” she blurts out, because she finally grasps that this is the reason why she went through this whole ordeal tonight. “I’m… I’m worried about you. Of what could happen.”

Dag gazes at her a bit longer, but finally releases a breath and stares, instead, at the stars.

“I also hated it. Before” the girl starts and Furiosa cringes. “Because it was his and he was the smeg of all smegs” she spits on the ground, disgusted to have even brought up his memory. “But Angharad said it was going to be beautiful. Because of me. And I… I believed her.”

The young woman cradles her enlarged stomach, caresses it lightly and lovingly with tattooed fingers.

“I know they could kill me” and her voice is placid. She knows, Furiosa thinks, knows there are two and knows of the risks.

“I can feel their hearts, though, beating in the silence like butterfly wings. And I know, know they are _mine_. His poison is gone, just as he is. We purged it out with the blood of our fallen ones. It’s _gone_. There is only hope, now, growing inside my womb. If it’s going to take me, then let it. I feel whole. I feel… infinite.”

Furiosa is stock-still, barely breathing, throat dry as if full of sand, as she feels the power of this girl’s choice.

“You wouldn’t understand” Dag says.

Perhaps it is because the day has flooded Furiosa with memories she had long since buried deep within her. Perhaps it is because of the heartbreaking compliance with which Dag is ready to face whatever fate the future holds for the sake of her children. Perhaps she is finally having a breakdown, and after almost seven thousand days, dealing with _that_ seems unavoidable. Whatever it is, it makes her say:

“I would. I do.”

When Joe had casted her out, he had only done it because he’d thought her infertile. Broken arm or not, he would have never discarded a perfectly capable and otherwise healthy breeder. However, Furiosa had failed to conceive until that point, despite Joe’s continuous and torturous tries. She was an affordable good to dispose back then.

Alone and frail, hiding in the corners as a mouse, scared and in so much pain her mind blurred at times, Furiosa had never noticed. Never noticed her qualms in the mornings. Mistook the two or three fainting episodes for hunger and illness.

When her belly started to grow, though, she had noticed.

She’d thought despair would take her, but it didn’t. If anything, knowing it had made her stronger. Suddenly, she wasn’t alone anymore. Because being alone was what terrified her. Even after being taken, Furiosa had not despaired, not with her mother’s hand in hers. But her mother had been taken away from her on the third day, deemed too old and too wild to breed, tossed down a catwalk screaming and fighting, whispering her last words in Furiosa’s ears:

“Do not go gentle into that good night! Rage, rage against the dying of the light!”

And she had _tried_. She had a hurricane trapped inside of her that Joe had tried to decimate; and then the little life growing inside her set it free. Joe had nothing to do with it anymore. It had been all her. Sneaking into the kitchens in the dead of night to steal scraps, sleeping under the darkened cover of the War Rig, melding herself with the shadows. Things like the loss of her arm and the dangers she was putting herself into had turned meaningless in face of the delight of feeling her child move from within her.

When the time had come, when she had felt her insides contract and pain overtake her venter, she had felt happiness for the first time after being taken from her home. Furiosa had not screamed, there had been no need. There was light pouring out from her, raging against the darkness, and soon enough, other sounds would fill the empty gardens and she would no longer be alone.

When it was done, though, there had been only cold and merciless silence.

Dag touches her hand, carefully, just a breeze of a touch to bring her back. It is enough to make Furiosa shudder.

“What happened?” she asks, but Furiosa is not sure if the girl voiced the question or if she just read it in her eyes.

Her son – it had been a boy – had born motionless to the world. His eyes had never opened and Furiosa had never known their color. His cold skin had felt soft under her fingers and she had washed it with her tears.

She says none of this to Dag, summarizing it in the only word she can manage.

“Dead.”

Furiosa’s first kill had been a War Boy, just barely above the age of a pup, that had heard her sobbing and caught her holding the inert bundle in her arms. She had squeezed his throat amid tears until the life had left his eyes and she could go back to her mourning.

Dag takes her hand, then, more firmly, and guides it to her stomach. Furiosa wants to coil, wants to move away from this burning gentleness, but Dag’s hold on her wrist in strong. Her other hand moves and cups Furiosa’s cheeks and only then does she notices she had been crying.

“I cannot give up. You taught me not to. Whatever darkness had fallen upon you, it did not eradicate your light” and it is so low, like a secret “You glow.”

And Furiosa cries. Openly. Sobs raging through her body as Dag holds her, cradling her head on her slender shoulders, as the lives inside the girl stir beneath her hand. She had come here to tell this girl to surrender, to let the darkness engulf her. There was no glamour in the light. No peace. Only a constant search for redemption that never came. She had not come here to be inflated with hope.

Dag takes her face in her hands after the sobs subside, looks into her eyes and reassures her as best as she can.

“ _We_ glow. All the rest is darkness.”

 

When Furiosa comes back to her room, much later that night, she brings white chalk with her, pulls a small bench to climb on and reach higher on the wall. There, she brings Mary Jobassa back to life.

_Do not go gentle into that good night._

_Rage, rage against the dying of the light_.

 

***

 

            Dag gives birth to her babies in the gardens, with the gentle breeze of the morning drying the sweat on her forehead. Furiosa never lets go of her hand.

            The boy, silent and bright eyed, she names Blue. The girl, loud, the wind carrying her screams between the Towers, she names Sky.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, lots of book references, in order of appearance :
> 
> 1) Mary Shelley, Frankenstein  
> 2) John Steinbeck, East of Eden  
> 3)Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince  
> 4) Lewis Carrol, Alice in Wonderland (for Dag, of course)  
> 5)Dylan Thomas, Do not o gentle into that good night  
> 6) Stephen King, IT
> 
> Also, Dag's phrase about feeling infinite is inspired by The Perks of Being a Wallflower, by Stephen Chbosky.


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